Sadly, today's tour was our last experience in Europe. We were fortunate enough to spend it with KWS Seed. In the morning, Rudiger Strohm gave us an overview of the company in the present and their goals for the future. It was interesting to learn that the company has three different divisions including: sugarbeets, corn/oil crops, and cereals. They breed crops for numerous resistances and they hope to increase their crop yields by 1-2% per year in the future. We learned that the company also has a focus on sustainable energy, and they produce biogas.

Today we left Hotel Rheinischer Hof in Duisburg, Germany and headed to Warstein where our first visit of the day was at Elmar Steinruecke's Percheran and horse training farm. We got to walk through the barns and a few of us even had the opportunity to sit on their Percheron Stallion named Sigfreid. This particular farm is also heavily tied to Warsteiner's Brewery, which is where we headed next.

This morning we had the opportunity to visit McDonald's Food Town located in Duisburg, Germany. Although there was not a McDonald's in sight, we still enjoyed many of our favorite foods. Food Town was developed around the concept of efficient logistics and distribution. Two of McDonald's largest suppliers, OSI Food Solutions and Fresh Start Bakeries, are built in tandem along with HAVI Logistics in order to help save on transportation costs.

After leaving Leiden for the last time this morning, we and all our luggage headed to visit the ADM cocoa processing facilty in the Amsterdam port area. Ad Grinwis, the Logistics Coordinator for the facility, showed us the discharge station where beans from other countries, namely Ivory Coast and West African regions, are brought in. Most of the beans come from various regions in Africa. An interesting fact that Ad shared was that the biggest problem he faced was theft from locals in Africa.

It was an early morning! We departed at 6:30 a.m. for the flower market: FloraHolland. Our tour guide, Niek, showed us around the market. We couldn't believe the thousands of flowers we saw coming through the marketplace. It was interesting to learn about how the flowers are brought into the market between 3 p.m. and 3 a.m., and then sold between 3:30 a.m./4 a.m.-ish through about noon.

Taking advantage of the free day, we experienced a train ride ending in the most famous city in Holland; Amsterdam. Before even leaving Leiden, Matt decided it would be a good idea to stop for a coffee and proceeded to miss the train. This was a great start to a day full of interesting events. Rainy and overcast skies welcomed us on our way to Anne Frank's Museum. The Museum depicted the profound story of Anne Frank and her family, hiding in Amsterdam during the Nazi persecution against Jews.

We were up early in Leiden and hit the road for a very interesting day. First, we visited a huge windmill which was installed 7 years ago by a group of regular citizens. The windmill provides power for 1400 households in the area. It was fascinating to go inside the windmill and hear from an expert in the field, Denny Steenhorst. The windmill we saw cost the investors a total payment of 2.25 million Euro. It was also very interesting to learn that the energy it took to construct the windmill was recovered in 4 months of the windmill's operation.

We started off the day super early and actually on time for once, pulling out of the hotel by 6:30am. We left Leuven for the last time and headed to the Mechelse Veilingen (Vegetable Auction) where Luc Peeters, head of external relations, gave us the overview of their company. Mechelse Veilingen  is a grower cooperative where vegetable growers bring their produce and buyers compete in the online markets to purchase fruits and vegetable by the crate or pallet. It reminded us of the Chicago Board of Trade.

Our class had the opportunity to visit the city of Brugge, Belgium for the beginning part of Thursday, a day that Belgian Catholics celebrate as the Ascension Day Holiday. The majority of businesses across the country were closed today in celebration of the holiday. Brugge remains open and serves as a tourist attraction on Ascension Day, due in large part to the Great Procession of the Holy Blood, which is where the bishop of Brugge carries a relic of the blood of Jesus Christ through the city's streets.

On Wednesday May 16th, we started of our day with a trip to the Kraft Foods Biscuit Plant in Herentals, Belgium. In Europe, biscuits are actually what Americans refer to as cookies and crackers in the States. We first sat down with Philippe Housseman, the Associate Director of Research and Development Chocolate, Western Europe Cluster, and several other employees including the plant manager, Carl. Carl gave us a brief presentation on some of the history of Kraft's biscuit brands. In summary of the presentation, we learned that in 2007 Kraft acquired the biscuit company LU.