De Nieuwe Melkboer encourages Dutch farmers to ‘milk’ their fields

Traditionally, all soy milk sold in Dutch retail was produced abroad. Brothers Tom and Bart Grobben changed that. With De Nieuwe Melkboer (The New Milkman), they ‘milk’ their own soybean field and want to encourage their Dutch colleagues to start growing soy and oats for vegetable dairy products on their fields as well.

You don’t have to teach marketing to the two farmers from Twente. With slogans like ‘Nether-soy from Twente soil’, ‘The first soy drink from Dutch soil’ and ‘Building a new Milky Way’, they unerringly know how to link the urgency of a transition in livestock farming to social sentiment.

Pioneers in plant-based NL dairy

They are pioneers in the cultivation and production of plant-based NL dairy. They annually sow part of their fields with soy and sell their own brand: De Nieuwe Melkboer. They are already available through webshops like Crisp, Gorillas, Boerschappen and Proef de Perfectie, some retail and catering outlets in the east of the country and wholesalers like Lindenhoff and Bolscherm. If it is up to Tom and Bart Grobben, it will not stop there, and their Dutch soy milk will soon be on the shelves of all supermarkets.

Downside of livestock farming

While studying at Wageningen University (WUR), the Grobben brothers had to answer an important question: are we going to continue the dairy farm that has been in our family for generations? And if so, how? That’s when they decided to do things completely differently. At university, they learned how highly developed and effective the Dutch agricultural sector is, but also its downside. That producing a kilo of meat requires 15,000 litres of water. That livestock farming is responsible for 14.5 per cent of greenhouse gases emitted worldwide. “Meat and dairy have a huge impact on the climate. You face all that as a farmer. In Wageningen, you are confronted with the facts, but your eyes are also opened about what is possible,” says Tom Grobben. “Among other things, you learn that growing plant-based food is actually much more efficient. As a farmer, you are an entrepreneur at the same time, so you look for future prospects.”

Where does the soy come from?

Many Dutch dairy farmers are struggling. They sell their dairy to cooperatives, so they are stuck with bid prices, making it logical to grow in size to be more cost-efficient in milking. Tom and Bart Grobben also still have 75 dairy cows on their farm. Too small for a dairy farm to have sufficient future prospects. “With the developments of producing milk more efficiently and on a larger scale, we see the danger of milking the cow more and more and we did not want to go along with that,” says Tom. “That’s why we didn’t see fit to put money into doubling our number of cows. Then the idea of soy milk from Twente soil was born. We see the plant-based market growing. We think that’s the future.

Nowadays, almost all vegetable dairy products are produced abroad, soy especially in North America. This is not always done sustainably. Transport is not sustainable either. It is actually funny that people start eating plant-based food for sustainability reasons, but don’t know where it comes from. Also, the polarisation in the debate between vegans and meat-eaters has gone a bit too far. Now, in our diet, 60 per cent of proteins are animal-based. If we can reduce that to 40 per cent in the Netherlands, we are already making huge strides.”

15,000 litres of soy milk per hectare

That’s why they started growing soy in 2026. Since November 2020, their soy milk has been on sale. They call it ‘soy drink’ themselves, because it should actually not be called milk. De Nieuwe Melkboer’s soy field yields about 3,000 kilos of soybeans per hectare. That’s good for 15,000 litres of soy milk. Last year, the brothers grew soya on 2 hectares, yielding 30,000 litres. This year, they will sow 3 hectares, which will be harvested in October. They are not the only ones, but they are the only farmers who process their soya into their own dairy and do not use it for cattle feed. To increase production, they also want to buy soy from other farmers. Therefore, the brothers want to encourage colleagues to grow it too. Livestock feed company Agrifirm has been working since 2013 to raise soy cultivation in the Netherlands to a higher level, but although there were already 91 growers growing soy on 475 hectares in 2018, that initiative never got off the ground properly. “Therefore, together with Agrifirm and Dutch farmers, we want to revive soybean cultivation. We can take care of sales with our brand,” Tom Grobben says. “After all, it would be a mortal sin if our agricultural sector could not take advantage of the rise of plant-based dairy.”

Oat milk next step

In doing so, they focus not only on soy but also on oats. Oat milk also now comes mainly from abroad. “That is the next step. We have already had a small test field,” says Tom Grobben. “It can be grown very well by Dutch farmers. If we start doing that with many at once, we can make and sell the oat milk.”

Guidance from Fastlane programme

De Nieuwe Melkboer’s sales are growing. In fact, demand is even greater than supply. The entire previous crop has already been used up for soya drink and other dairy products. To increase production, more supply is needed from other farmers. After that more buyers are needed, such as supermarkets. To make that step, De Nieuwe Melkboer participated in The Fastlane Programme of Invest-NL and Foodvalley NL, which assists companies financially, legally and technically through tailor-made plans.

Grobben: “We see a lot of demand in the Dutch market that we want to meet. But if you want to engage with Dutch retail, you also have to be able to produce and deliver on a large scale. In order to take that professional step, we are scaling up and the Fastlane programme has helped us with that. Questions like: how are you going to set up your business? What do you need to consider? How do you attract new customers? Fastlane taught us how to do that.”

Learn more

• Website De Nieuwe Melkboer(External link)
• De Nieuwe Melkboer is an alumni of the Fastlane programme(External link)