Coenegrachts Substrates, located in Riemst, Belgium, will expand its phase III capacity from 400 tonnes to 720 tonnes weekly. A phase I facility is also being built and will go into production in September 2012.
Cousins Bart and Koen Coenegrachts have been in charge of Coenegrachts Substrates since 2006, and in 2009 Dutch company Vedemij has also become a shareholder. The phase I capacity will be 3600 tonnes weekly, but at first the company wishes to produce 2400 tonnes, of which 50% will go to Vedemij and 50% stays in Riemst. Coenegrachts Substrates was founded in 1996 and has been growing since, partly as an exporting company for phase III mushroom compost to exotic countries like Malaysia and Abu Dhabi. Koen Coengrachts: “We have developed a new method to transport spawn run compost over long distance. Instead of using standard blocks, we are now pressing the compost in large round bales of 900 kilograms each. We are doing this since a couple of months now and it works excellent.” In the first edition of “Mushroom Business” in 2012 a more detailed story on the new developments will be published.
