Jan Bakker, CEO of TTA (L) and Martin Maasland, CEO of ISO (R) | TTA-ISO
In January, Greenhouse Grower reported on the merger of ISO Horti — a specialist in horticultural robotics and automation — and TTA — experts in transplanting and sorting solutions. Operating under the name TTA-ISO, this partnership directly addresses the booming demand for automation in global horticulture and food production. You can find the original story here.
Greenhouse Grower Editor Brian Sparks recently caught up with Martin Maasland, CEO of ISO, and Jan Bakker, CEO of TTA, to learn more about why the merger took place, what it means for growers, and how it will help with new technology development.
Brian Sparks: Let’s start with how and why the merger between ISO and TTA took place.
Jan Bakker: Early on, we started discussing what might happen if we merged our two companies together and combined our technologies. We quickly saw that by leveraging each other’s expertise and capacity, we could bring more automation solutions to the market, much faster. We also looked at it from a geographical standpoint. A merger would give us a bigger footprint with our sales and service team, which would be a big benefit for our customers.
Martin Maasland: By having a much larger capacity of people, we can give even more attention to our customers. We also learned that we are both spending R&D time to develop similar solutions. If we can reduce the duplication, we can accelerate innovation together.
Finally, we looked at the global footprint. We have a much stronger organization in the U.S. now by merging these two organizations, and it’s similar in other parts of the world.
Brian Sparks: How will this merger affect growers and customers of the two companies? What can they expect to see moving forward?
Jan Bakker: At the service level, we have more people who can service our machines. So you will see better service on the equipment worldwide, as well as quicker solutions. This will also allow us to focus on new things together.
Martin Maasland: We will be able to offer more attention to growers in the U.S. with our combined portfolio. One product or solution might be a better fit or serve a purpose for one type of customer, while another might be better for someone else. For example, both companies have sorting machines, but we use different kinds of vision systems. By working closely with our customers, we will be able to better offer what is the best fit for them. TTA has traditionally been very strong in transplanting machines, so our customers that have been historically closer to ISO can now find new transplanting machine options. At the same time, we can offer TTA customers new grafting solutions.
Brian Sparks: What are some of the emerging technologies that might be coming down the pipeline from this newly formed company? At the same time, what are growers telling you they want next in terms of automation technology?
Martin Maasland: One thing that is special with both our companies is the culture of the people. We come from agricultural backgrounds. We care about the machines we make and how the machine helps the grower get better results. When we talk with our customers, we ask about their challenges with labor or with plant uniformity. Then we brainstorm to come to a good solution, which we also then cross-check with other customers. That helps us determine if it’s something that we can roll out on a bigger scale.
In terms of the next developments in technology, we’re doing a lot in young plants and grading technology, and we’re also looking into harvesting, starting with tomatoes. We recently launched a tomato harvester for the greenhouse at the Fruit Logistica in Berlin.
Jan Bakker: Grafting and the sticking of cuttings is another example, as well as tissue culture. In both of our individual companies, we’ve been working on cutting planting machines for plants that come from tissue culture and have to be moved to the substrate effectively. We have a broad range of solutions there now, and we will develop this further.
By combining all these technologies, we are able to deliver complete solutions with the knowledge that we can help the customer find the best solution for their process, and then automate that as far as possible.
Martin Maasland: We also know the cost of labor in the U.S, is getting higher, and growers are also dealing with stricter immigration policies. If growers want to keep producing with less people, they need automation, and that’s where we look to bring in value.
Jan Bakker: Food security is also a big topic. We want to assist to making sure that there is food security in areas where there is no food security at this moment.
Brian Sparks: Where can growers in the U.S. get more information on your company and products?
Martin Maasland: They can go to our new website, tta-iso.com. We also have a Sales e-mail address ([email protected]).
