September 8, 2026

Bolleboom Kwekerijen is run by Ben Bolleboom and his brother in Bleiswijk. The company, which was built by their father, consists of two blocks of 3.5 hectares of cucumbers each. After two years of gaining experience with LED, Bolleboom has now decided to replace the HPS lighting in the rest of the cucumber operation with Philips GreenPower LED toplighting force elite 200 µmol. This allows the company to double the amount of light using the same amount of electricity, contributing to higher production and more profitable cultivation.

Two years ago, Bolleboom stopped lighting the HPS greenhouse because rising energy prices had made cultivation too expensive. With the new installation, the company plans to start production early in the year, but with a more stable lighting strategy and a better balance between energy input and yield. This helps limit production fluctuations, smooth out labor requirements, and maintain a more stable relationship with trade.

“We want to work with a reliable partner and a reliable product,” says Ben Bolleboom. “I have every confidence we have that. Signify has already delivered several proven projects without issues. And there is a large company behind it.”

In Pijnacker, Kwekerij Bazuin is also taking an important step in the development of its business. Bas Bazuin runs the family company together with his brother Luuk and father Jan Willem. The company has existed since 1940 and mainly supplies the German market. Bazuin has demolished the old greenhouse and purchased land from neighbors, doubling its area to 2.8 hectares. In the new greenhouse, Bazuin is switching from an unlit high-wire crop to Philips GreenPower LED toplighting force elite with Philips GrowWise control.

The company’s decision to work with Signify was based on a comparison of three suppliers. “Signify provides better light output,” says Bas Bazuin. “If you calculate that efficiency in terms of production, you earn back the investment quickly enough.” The connection with the climate computer also played an important role. “We also chose Signify because of Philips GrowWise control, as it can be connected to our Priva climate computer. We know from others that it can sometimes take a lot of effort to get a connection to the climate computer working.”

For Bazuin, lighting is a prerequisite for making the new greenhouse future-proof. “High-wire cultivation without lights is not an option for us,” says Bas Bazuin. “If you want to move forward as a company, with fewer peaks and dips in production and a flatter labor requirement so you can retain people, then you switch to LED.” With a CHP installation, Bazuin will soon generate around 70% of the required energy itself; the remaining 30% will be purchased. With rising energy costs and an unpredictable energy budget, efficient and controllable lighting is essential.

The collaboration between the two cucumber growers also played a role in the decision-making process. Bas completed two internships at Bolleboom, where he became familiar with LED cultivation. Together with Ben Bolleboom, he explored the possibilities, reviewed the calculations, and arrived at the best solution for the new greenhouse. With Philips GrowWise control, Bazuin will be able to set light recipes precisely using the four-channel control of the luminaire. “That way, everything is properly arranged from the start,” says Bas.

With these investments, Bolleboom and Bazuin demonstrate how modern cucumber growers use intelligent LED lighting as a strategic tool: not only to achieve more light, but above all, to better align production, labor, energy, and market certainty. For Bolleboom, this means replacing HPS with LED to achieve more light and higher production with the same electrical capacity. For Bazuin, it means taking the step toward a newly lit cultivation site in which light quality, integration with the climate computer and dynamic crop control are incorporated right from the start.