SPADO is een afkorting van Spaargaaren en Van Doorn B.V. DC3 heeft samen met deze firma een projectvoorstel (PSOM) ingediend bij het EVD. Dit voorstel is aangenomen en het project loopt op dit moment. Hieronder een korte beschrijving van het project:
Project title and location (city, province, country): The project title is: Sealeafs.Place: Sint Anthony Estate in the Palama district Puttalem, Sri Lanka. The estate is next to the Dedra Oya river.
Project starting and finishing date The starting date of the project will be December 2007 and will finish 3 years later in December 2010. Because this project is agricultural the project may be extended to a maximum of three years and will depend on seasonal influences.
Project budget The full project budget is € 803.700,- The own contribution will be 50% of the total project costs, so € 401.850,-
The project will establish a new export market from Sri Lanka with special cutting leafs to the Netherlands using container transport. The project contains growing plants for production of cutting leafs mainly for export to Holland. These cutting leafs are used for flowerindustry and mostly by flowershops. The plant types that are needed for cutting leaf are some well-known types and a few new types that we want to introduce in Sri Lanka: like Fatsia types and types from South Africa like Proteae. Other types Phoenix Roebellinie, Cycas Revaluta, Cordyline types, Zamia cultus, Asdistra Milkyway, and Asditra green.
The applicant devellopped a new way of producing cutting leafs that makes the leaf strong enough for transport by seafreight. The plants that are initially needed are not different then the plants that you can buy in the market but it is the new way to cultivate and growing that makes a special “hard” leaf that can survive transport over sea in stead of normally used seafreight. With seafreight in stead of airfreight the costprice of the leafs can be reduced with 525% which gives the new joint venture a competitive advantage. Ensured market demands and fixed minimum selling prices makes the project Sealeaf interessting. At the end of the project we commit ourselves to have sent at least 15 seafreight containers with the new type of cutting leafs. Follow up investments after the pilot project will contain the cultivation of more land up to 40ha in total. So after the pilot of 10ha, an additional 30ha will be cultivated and prepared for production of several types of cutting leafs. With more production we expect to grow to a production of two 40ft containers a week at the end of 2015.
