The tulip is an icon of the Dutch culture. Thousands of hectares are planted each year to export the bulbs worldwide. Strangely, the most beautiful part of the flower, the head, has no economic value except being a coveted photo object of many a tourist.
Studio Tjeerd Veenhoven worked for eight months to extract new value from this waste residual, namely pigment. The flower heads are collected by us and dried. Through a mechanical and biochemical process the color is extracted form the petal. Every time it is a surprise what color emerges from this almost artisanal process. The applications run from finger-paint to the coloring of biological plastic. This gives flower petals besides aesthetic value also economic benefits.
2014, 2015, 2016
The Netherlands yearly cultivates eleven thousand hectares of tulip in countless color variations . Per hectare there can grow up to 800.000 flowers enabling a potential yield of around 800 kg of organic pigment!
The Netherlands
February 23, 2016