[russellbeattie]

"Food Valley"? Oh, come on... they could have done better! How about "Sustenance Valley"? But that brings up a secondary point... a valley?? In Holland??

[timon-io]

Calling anything in the Netherlands a hill or valley is a bit of a stretch. However 'Food Valley' refers to the regional nickname 'Gelderse Vallei' and is in fact a valley between the following ridges:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utrecht_Hill_Ridge

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veluwe

[skrebbel]

Yeah, it's nuts. Every region and a half in the Netherlands that specializes in something calls themselves "something something valley".

That said I was once in Silicon Valley and there were hills on the left and water on the right. Not really much of a valley either.

[evgen]

And if you looked past the water you would have seen the hills on the other side. The 'valley' is between hills on either side of the bay.

[russellbeattie]

The hills in the Bay Area range from 350m to 1300m, so they're not huge, but drive/hike up over them and they definitely feel mountainous. The "Valley" can best be seen from Skyline Blvd running along the peaks to the west: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/San_Jose...

[tomsmeding]

I live in the Netherlands, and I've never heard anything like that before. I live in The Hague, maybe it's a regional thing?

[sytse]

I used to live in the Netherlands and I'm writing this from Utrecht. The valleys are regional:

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_Valley in Wageningen

2. https://www.healthvalley.nl/ in Nijmegen

3. http://www.metalvalley.eu/nl/home in Brabant

4. https://www.immunovalley.nl/ in Utrecht

5. https://legalvalleynederland.nl/ in Arnhem

6. https://www.energyvalley.nl/ in the northern provinces

If you like partying you can always go to: https://dancevalley.com/

[skrebbel]

The pattern is so overused that organizations that never even tried to amount to something adopted it. Eg I was once at an event organized by "DSP Valley", which was never more than someone behind a desk organizing a few (mediocre) networking events: https://www.hightechcampus.nl/bedrijven/dsp-valley.

[Aeolun]

Coming back to the Netherlands from abroad it often feels like they’re pretty good at coming up with what I would consider fairly cringeworthy names.

[skrebbel]

Yep! I myself live and work in the area (Eindhoven) that willingly calls itself "Brainport". I hear the word almost daily for ten years and I still cringe.

[radicalbyte]

The region is called the Valley and it is - thanks to Wageningen University - a world leader in agricultural research. So the name makes sense.

I also live there; but to be honest they could rename it to "Randstad Valley" given the amount of people who are moving here from Amsterdam and Utrecht.