Certhon Brand Guidelines: The Poeldijk Greenhouse Builder Fully Owned by DENSO Since 2023

A family business that became part of DENSO.

Certhon says it started in 1896 as a family business. Its owner since 2023, the Japanese automotive supplier DENSO, described Certhon in its announcement of the purchase as a company with a history of more than 125 years. The founders’ names and the details of its early decades are not set out on the company’s own pages or in the sources used for this guide, so this account begins with what can be dated.

The company gives its headquarters as Poeldijk, in the Westland district south-west of The Hague. Next to its offices sits the Certhon Innovation Centre, which Hortidaily described in June 2023 as a research facility for developing greenhouse and indoor-cultivation systems, where new technology, growing recipes and processes can be tested before they are used in commercial horticulture.

In its own words, Certhon “was originally a greenhouse builder,” as it put it in a June 2022 note before the GreenTech Amsterdam fair, adding that its other activities are presented under that core business. Today it describes itself as advising on and developing turnkey, tailor-made concepts for high-tech horticultural projects anywhere in the world, from large greenhouses to indoor farms, “yield as a service” and autonomous growing.

Its slogan is “Growing anything, anywhere. For everyone.” The phrase appears across its website and recurs in the statements its leadership and its Japanese owner have made about the business. Lotte van Rijn, named as Certhon’s general director in DENSO’s 2023 announcement, signs a board message on the website inviting growers, researchers and investors to “share your ambitions with us.”

Greenhouses, cooling and automated tomatoes.

Certhon’s range runs from the whole greenhouse to the systems inside it. Under the heading of turnkey greenhouses it offers large-scale high-tech glasshouses built to order; under indoor farming, closed growing rooms that do not depend on daylight. The Certhon Control System, the company says, manages a site’s technical installations, from heat pumps and underground water storage to climate chambers and irrigation, as one hardware and software package.

Two climate products carry their own names. The JSK cooling system, which the company calls a world first in high-precision cooling, draws warm air from above the crop, cools it through a heat exchanger and blows it out beneath the crop; Certhon says the same units can also heat and dehumidify a greenhouse. SuprimAir is a greenhouse design with a climate corridor that acts as a mixing chamber for indoor and outdoor air, which the company says is aimed mainly at hot, dry regions.

The most widely reported system is Gronos, an automated method of growing cherry tomatoes. In July 2022 Hortidaily reported that Certhon had developed it as a fully automated vertical farm at its Innovation Centre, together with the breeder HW Seeds, using a compact determinate tomato plant whose fruit sets and ripens almost all at once, and a harvesting robot that separates the tomatoes from the plant. In June 2023 the same title reported that Gronos had been adapted for high-tech greenhouses with daylight, with plants no taller than 40 centimetres grown from seed to harvest in 15 weeks. Certhon says Gronos was nominated in the concept category of the GreenTech Amsterdam innovation awards in 2022.

On its website Certhon names three reference projects: a research facility for SESVanderHave in Belgium, which it presents as built for the sugar industry, a production greenhouse for YouYou in Shanghai, and a greenhouse for Tesselaar in the Netherlands. Those descriptions are the company’s own.

How greenhouse builders present themselves.

Greenhouse builders sell something most people never see from the inside: a glass roof that can run for hectares, the steel and aluminium that holds it up, and the heating, cooling, water and climate systems below it. Their pictures tend to repeat a small set of scenes. Long glasshouse roofs catch low evening light; inside, tomato and pepper rows climb toward hanging gutters, shade screens sit half-drawn under the glass, and a climate computer glows on a grower’s desk. The images sell scale and control rather than a single product.

Much of the Dutch side of the trade grew up in and around the Westland, the district south-west of The Hague that Dalsem calls the traditional heart of Dutch horticulture. Certhon gives its headquarters as Poeldijk, in the Westland, and Dalsem gives its address as Den Hoorn, close by. Dalsem traces itself to a blacksmith who started work in the Westland in 1932, and Certhon says it began as a family business in 1896; both have since passed to larger groups, and the guides in this series set out who owns what today and when that changed.

The trade meets at fairs. GreenTech Amsterdam, held at the RAI exhibition centre, said in January 2018 that it would become an annual event, and builders use their stands as showrooms: in June 2022 Certhon said its stand had a large greenhouse deck hanging from the hall’s truss, with a harvesting robot on display beneath it. Trade titles such as Hortidaily report the projects, product launches and changes of ownership that follow.

This guide sets out what can be checked about each brand — when it began, who owns it, where it says it works and what it makes — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word. The palettes and type are our own interpretation, not the companies’ identities.

From alliance to full ownership.

Certhon’s link with DENSO came in two steps. According to DENSO’s announcement, issued from Kariya, Japan, on 1 August 2023, the two companies formed a capital alliance in March 2020, and in May 2020 jointly set up DENSO AgriTech Solutions, Inc. to sell horticultural facility products in Japan and other Asian countries. Hortidaily, reporting the deal in August 2023, said DENSO had taken a minority stake in the family-owned company in 2020.

The 2023 announcement said DENSO had acquired the full stake in Certhon Group, which it described as a Dutch horticultural facility operator, and that the two would combine DENSO’s process design and automation work from the automotive field with Certhon’s cultivation and greenhouse systems. Hidehiro Yokoo, the DENSO executive in charge of its food value chain business, called Certhon a partner with shared values and complementary technologies. Lotte van Rijn said DENSO’s investment would allow Certhon to maintain continuity for its employees, customers and suppliers.

The collaboration shows in Certhon’s products. In June 2023 Hortidaily reported that Certhon would present its harvest robot at GreenTech Amsterdam alongside a session on how its work with DENSO was affecting tomato growers. Certhon’s website describes the company as “a partner of DENSO,” and quotes a DENSO executive saying that Certhon “is part of the DENSO group.” No logo history, house typeface or official colours are documented in the sources used for this guide.

For a design guide, Certhon shows how an old family name can be repositioned around technology and a single repeated promise, while keeping its roots in a Westland village. Compare Dalsem, a neighbouring greenhouse builder that also passed to a larger owner, and Ridder, another Dutch horticulture technology company. For this guide we use a deep teal and a ripe tomato red with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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