Reduced water consumption

Our production location in Koka, Ethiopia has invested heavily in a number of water management solutions. With more cooling capacity, extra storage capacity and a new irrigation system, we can switch to maximum use of natural hot water sources and minimal use of river water. In addition, we reduce our water consumption and heat the greenhouses without burning fossil resources.

Sources

Florensis Ethiopia PLC extracts 50% of the irrigation water from the Awash river and 50% from hot springs. In addition, we use the hot water sources for heating our greenhouses during cold nights between October and March, which means that we do not have to burn fossil resources. The river water is disinfected with a UV installation and the spring water (for irrigation) is treated with a Reversed Osmosis (RO) system.

Investing

 To make our water use more sustainable and to exclude cultivation risks, we are currently investing in 3 improvements:

• Expansion (doubling) of the capacity of our Reversed Osmosis system and an increase of its efficiency
• 1000 m3 extra water storage (silos) for storing the return water from the greenhouse heating
• Expansion of cooling capacity to cool the spring water in the non-heating season

Water use

The inconstant quality of the river water poses risks for cultivation. With these investments we can switch to maximum use of source water and minimum use of river water. We also reduce our water consumption with this, as the hot spring water that we use for greenhouse heating was previously not reused. Now we have developed a system in which we convert this water, which is already cooled in the greenhouse, into irrigation water. This saves around 1000 m3 of water per day.