The fruit-fly trap is Super Ninja’s chief product. The company moved into its own office in Plus Ultra II this month. Its product is a little trap made of recycled plastic that lures fruit flies with a particular mix of odours. ‘The trap is not just ecological,’ says Stef ten Dam, R&D manager at Super Ninja, ‘but also handy: you can stick it onto the bin where most of the fruit flies collect.’
The fruit-fly trap is for sale at most Dutch supermarkets. It went like this: when the supermarkets started selling freshly squeezed orange juice, they found themselves with a fruit fly problem. Super Ninja’s product was so successful that the retailers now also have it on their shelves. The small company — three people — is now aiming to sell to supermarkets in Germany and the UK. It has also developed traps for silverfish and golden fern mosquitoes (found in potting soil). ‘The business is doing well,’ says Ten Dam.
Super Ninja has been around for four years and started out in Rotterdam, but it has been based on the Wageningen campus for a few years now. Ten Dam studied Forest and Nature Management in Wageningen and came to the company through an ACT project (Academic Consultancy Training) on biological ant control.
Supermarkets selling fresh orange juice found themselves with a fruit fly problem
An ACT project to develop a product against mosquitoes may follow soon. ‘If we grow any bigger, we might start doing research at the university.’
There are about 100 companies on campus. We introduce them to you in Resource. This time, Super Ninja in Plus Ultra II.
