THE DE ZEEUW BROTHERS

Step into the sheds of the De Zeeuw Brothers in the north of The Netherlands and you'll mostly see one thing: machines running. Crates filling up like clockwork with seed potatoes moving steadily along conveyor belts. At the heart of this operation? The VHM BoxFilr, running year-round. It’s more than just a machine— the De Zeeuw Brothers helped shape the machine’s open-dump system themselves.

The ambition

Brothers Jaap and Hans de Zeeuw have run the business for decades with a tight-knit team of 4 to 5 employees. In recent years, Herjan Kloosterman and Hans’s son Arnoud de Zeeuw joined as co-owners.

“We started out growing table potatoes on our arable farm in Nagele,” says Jaap, “but once we bought a second farm, we shifted into seed potatoes. As the scale grew, we needed machines that could keep up. We’ve always made major investments in machinery and automation.”

Herjan adds: “When we’re harvesting, there’s one guy in the shed. He still has to be able to  do it all. We used to unload 20 tons per hour—now it’s 60. And we still want to do it with just one guy, not three forklifts racing around.”

The challenge

Before turning to VHM, De Zeeuw already had experience with box fillers.

“For us, it’s essential that boxes are filled lightly and evenly—no cone heaps—so drying time is shorter. We aim to get potatoes dry in two to three days to prevent disease,” says Herjan “We also wanted a machine that works year-round. Most box fillers only run 5 to 7 weeks during harvest and sit idle the rest of the year. We needed more.”

The solution

“We fine-tuned the dump system together with VHM,” Herjan explains. “We now use a V-shaped fall breaker that splits the stream of seed potatoes. They drop gently and fill the box lightly. Each box can take 1,300 kilos, but we only fill to 1,250.”

In the summer, the team processes 8,000 to 9,000 boxes using two Stackrs and one BoxFilr in between them. At their other location in Nagele—where they grow 75 hectares of onions—they’ve added a second BoxFilr with two more Stackrs, handling 3,000 to 4,000 boxes.

“During grading and storing, we’ve got two setups: we use a BoxFilr with an extra outfeed belt and a Turnr with EvenFlow with Stackrs on either side. It can unload directly into trucks or rotate boxes to let the potatoes breathe, shake off debris, and break sprouts. That rotation makes them lie looser in the box, improving flow on the belt.”

 “We used to need two people and two box turners to keep things moving. We managed 450 boxes a day. Now? One person gets the same work done, with one Turnr with EvenFlow—same output, lower cost.”

“A few years ago, we also bought an EvenFlowTipr with two Stackrs from VHM for unloading winter carrots and table potatoes in Nagele. That made the step to a second BoxFilr much easier, since we already had four Stackrs in place. These machines have brought a great deal of calm and efficiency to our unloading process. In the upcoming season, we’re expanding our machinery further with a new grading setup equipped with camera technology, fully integrated with VHM’s automated box logistics for both infeed and outfeed.”