Putting the soul into summer greens

July and August are traditionally the months when shoppers shimmy past the vegetable fixture and dive straight into the salads.

With recent winter-like weather demand for brassicas is still strong, although ironically there is a shortage of supply to meet it.

The Brassica Growers’ Association says harvesting of early season broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and Swede is proving very difficult, as tractors cannot get onto fields.

“Crops are extremely waterlogged with standing water and crop write-offs quite a common discussion point,” adds a spokesman.

“I know of one farmer who has had to just plough back into the ground £250,000 of cauliflower,” says Paul King, of Bradford wholesale market’s P&P King.

Traders at New Spitalfields Market have reported that sales of broccoli in particular are going for double the normal price of £4 to £5 up to as much as £14, such is the scarcity.

At a time when producers are normally thinking up ways to keep people interested in cabbages and cauliflowers, all they can do is watch while the rain sinks their crops.

However, the industry can take hope from the fact that by investing in campaigns such as Love Your Greens and introducing new lines to capture consumer’s cooking imagination, people are becoming more aware of the versatility of the produce.

While there is no official summer greens category, chefs such as Raymond Blanc are using the term. Last year Blanc devoted a whole episode of his BBC Kitchen Secrets show to summer greens, saying: “These wonderful greens will show you how to make a great dish.”

His recipes included using spinach in pasta dishes and cooking with sorrel, which he described as a “Classic, it defies time, defies trend. Long live sorrel.”

Such enthusiasm for summer greens is welcome news to Gavin Willerton, Produce World Marshalls’ technical and development director. “Typically during July and August sales dip,” he says.

“There’s been a revived interest in Chinese cooking, for example with Gok Wan’s show, and a lot of summer greens are perfect for that.

“We have been developing lines that are connected to existing cooking trends, such as collard greens. These greens are used in a lot of soul food cooking.”

Produce World Marshalls is supplying collard greens to Waitrose along with its homegrown tatsoi. The dark green, Asian-inspired vegetable is used as an alternative to cabbage.

Waitrose vegetable buyer, Kate Prall says: “It’s exciting to be able to sell British-grown tatsoi this summer. It’s a delicious addition to the wide variety of more exotic vegetables we already have on shelf.”

The weather is certainly not helping supply, but the fact that people are willing to pay more rather than miss out on their greens is surely a good sign for the future. -