RZ-100-wt4-E-flipbook-240702 - Flipbook - Page 131
30 per cent
Annually, as much as around 30 per cent
20
09
Expedition RZ
Leaf lettuce
of its turnover is spent on Research &
Development. ‘Necessary investments,’
argues Kees Reinink. ‘After all, we have to
First crunchy
indented Salanova
leaf lettuce with
high m2 yield.
compete with the very biggest. For that
you need to have a certain size and market
share, and we have to invest enough in
R&D to achieve and maintain that market
position.’ Rijk Zwaan is a frontrunner in the
Netherlands in the field of R&D.
20
09
Sven RZ
Blocked
sweet pepper
In 2021, Rijk Zwaan ranks 11th in the top 30
companies that spend the most on R&D in
Research & Development:
Rijk Zwaan continues to innovate
absolute amounts.
Short crop
for lower
greenhouses.
As an R&D company, innovation at Rijk Zwaan is a
One of Rijk Zwaan’s most important R&D devel-
top priority. After the turn of the century,
opments over the past 25 years has been the
Rijk Zwaan starts investing more in research and
large-scale deployment in breeding of
development than ever before. The investments
DNA markers, which demonstrate in the lab
in biotechnology, which Rijk Zwaan started in
whether or not a plant has a particular plant trait.
the 1980s and 1990s, will continue. In 2004, a new
The development of these types of ‘markers’
breeding location and biotechnology research
requires a wealth of molecular biological and
facility was opened in Fijnaart, a major investment
bioinformatics knowledge.
20
09
Ramyle RZ
Vine tomato
DNA profile marker.
Important
vine tomato
variety in Spain.
made possible by the company’s growth.
Since 2010, Rijk Zwaan has been using ‘Next
Besides crop-oriented research, the biotechnology
Generation Sequencing’ (NGS) machines, in
disciplines (molecular biology, cell biology,
which the sequence of the genome of plants
biochemistry, quantitative genetics and bio-
can be mapped relatively quickly, cheaply and
informatics) are increasingly being used for basic
on a large scale. This makes it much easier and
research that is relevant to all crops, such as
cheaper to develop markers. Before acquiring
research into the underlying genes that deter-
these machines in 2010, Rijk Zwaan didn’t do the
mine a plant’s architecture.
sequencing or develop the markers itself; instead,
20
09
Launch of
RZ Egypt
20
09
Anton
van Doornmalen
retires
Marco
van Leeuwen
becomes
Board member
KeyGene carried out this work for its shareholders.
This was because of the high costs involved. Now
all of Rijk Zwaan’s breeding departments use DNA
markers to quickly select their breeding material.
2010-2011
The now obsolete
sequencing machine.
2000-2014 | Chain activities and the growing position in society
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