Panda food and ice cream

Last week, it was time for the "Kom in de Kas" (Come into the Greenhouse) event again. A group of participating growers near Asten wanted to offer something tasty to their visitors. For that reason, they rented an ice cream bike with ice cream from De IJsmannetjes. Two ladies served the ice cream themselves to everyone who stopped by—and they did a great job. In total, they scooped out more than 1,000 ice creams.

The ice cream bike was stationed at one of the participating companies: Bamboo Giant in Asten. When our colleague delivered the cart there in the morning, he noticed a sign that read: "Bamboo nursery and panda food." At first, he thought it was a clever joke; after all, pandas eat bamboo and this was a bamboo nursery. But when he spoke with the client, it turned out to be very serious.

In Europe, there are only a handful of zoos that house pandas. These pandas eat nothing but bamboo, and they are incredibly picky: the bamboo must be fresh, of a specific thickness, and they prefer a variety of types in their diet. As it turns out, Bamboo Giant supplies bamboo to several of these zoos! They have no less than 12 hectares of bamboo, grown exclusively for this purpose. Every week, trucks drive across Europe to deliver the pandas their fresh meals.