Lars van Gaalen has been appointed sales manager for the United Kingdom, Ireland and northern Germany by innovative Dutch dairy equipment developer Hanskamp.

A graduate from AOC, Agricultural Centre, Montfoort, in his home province of Utrecht, Lars gained valuable farming experience on a 1200ha unit in Western Australia and with a 300,000ha outback station.

Prior to joining Hanskamp, he spent two years with a German equipment supplier. Outside of work Lars is a keen cycling road racer.

Hanskamp specialises in accurate and easily managed ‘anti-bullying’ feeding systems for dairy cows.

The firm’s products include the PipeFeeder range of cost-effective feeding systems, for both milking parlours and robotic milking units; MultiDos liquid feeding controls; the L’Port Closing Gate; as well as walk-in and walk-through feeding stations

The closing gate feeding systems are designed to fence off the feeding area with an automatic gated entry system so that dominant cows are separated from heifers to reduce bullying.

Humble beginnings

Hanskamp was founded by Henk Hanskamp in 2001 in a small shed behind his house where he started to develop practical innovations in feeding technology.

Being a farmer’s son and self-employed in the area of milking, he knew how dairy farming worked and what the industry needed.

In 2017, the firm announced it had sold and installed more than 10,000 of its PipeFeeders.