The brassica family has made up a substantial part of the UK’s staple vegetable offer for decades, through various different products in its wide portfolio. From the traditional favourite cauliflower, to its Italian cousin broccoli’s domination of both the fields and consumer plates since the late 1980s, the brassica selection seems endless.
Savoy has taken over the once popular green cabbage, white cabbage is still keeping the wet salad processors busy and more heritage ranges like purple sprouting broccoli, kale and spring greens are firmly back in vogue. And let’s not forget the unusual suspects - turnips, swede, spinach, rocket and radishes - also considered part of the family, as well as the new brassicas on the block, Tenderstem and Bellaverde broccoli.
Yet despite the diverse range of products and countless varieties within those brassica types, the sector is struggling to remain profitable and popular in an industry where competition for shelf space is fierce.
According to Kantar Worldpanel, the total spend on brassicas in the UK is down by 2.6 per cent year on year, with cauliflower dropping by 5.4 per cent and broccoli up by only 0.1 per cent. Relatively new items such as pak choi (up 14.4 per cent) and spring greens (up 12.1 per cent) are doing well by comparison, although it is worth bearing in mind that the products account for just 0.1 and 3.5 per cent of the total volume share respectively.
If you compare the brassica offer to its fresh produce counterparts, several issues become apparent. In the UK tomato industry, for example, producers have the advantages of both having a very recognisable product and consumer interest in the sector.
In some cases, consumers are conscious of individual varieties like the ever-popular Piccolo but the types of tomatoes, like on-the-vine, plum, cherry and baby plum, are widely appreciated and sought after. In the UK particularly, this diversification has in some way saved the domestic tomato industry, which found it hard to compete with the Dutch offer of the traditional round tomato - however, it is still providing only 20 per cent of the UK’s fresh tomato consumption annually. Like the brassica industry, the tomato has a long-standing growers’ group - the British Tomato Growers’ Association (TGA) - which has funded and supported an ongoing publicity campaign that includes regular PR activities like British Tomato Week.
Other products, namely shallots, soft fruit and asparagus, have really benefited from aptly focused, well-funded PR campaigns.
The potato sector is well-known for its high budget consumer campaigns, with individual varieties and brands also benefiting from specific promotion. So is it the brassica industry’s wide portfolio that is part of the problem?
A common belief within the brassica industry is that the reason why the product does not conjure up strong demand is that consumers are in need of education regarding what the family group includes, how to cook the products and the health benefits they bring. This has been backed up by the new BGA campaign, which is being handled by Pam Lloyd PR. The first thing the team did was look at the term “brassica” and what that meant to the average consumer. Not surprisingly, it was found that anyone outside of the industry was at a loss as to what exactly it was, with a lot of consumers even failing to recognise it as a vegetable group. In reality though, it is the Latin name for the vegetable family and not exactly cutting edge.
The new Love Your Greens campaign has been created with the aim of introducing the idea of grouping the different brassica vegetables together without bogging people down with industry jargon.
Growers are optimistic that the ongoing campaign will bring great things, although expectations will have to be put into context of the relatively low budget. The £25,000-campaign provides a website, media relations campaign and designated media office, as well as targeting titles for traditional shoppers, the family market and women’s press.
One leading brassica grower blames the death of kitchen and culinary skills for the travails of traditional brassicas such as cauliflower and kale - who wants to take apart a large caulifower head if with one slice, broccoli florets are ready in a second? Others have pointed the finger at the disappearance of the family home and family dining. There are fears that traditional eating patterns and food preparation skills are not being passed on to the next generation because parents do not have them in the first place.
On the other side of the coin, most feel that low profits and the very nature of a sector so reliant on the power of supply and demand are not conducive to expensive PR campaigns.
It is common knowledge that another Pam Lloyd PR campaign for the shallot industry has a larger budget than the BGA’s, which instead of one niche line, is expected to cover five different products - cabbage, swede, broccoli, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts. The limitations are obvious and although a hugely effective tool, PR cannot wave a magic wand.
So would the answer lie in separating different products and focusing on the promotion of one thing at a time? This approach seems to have given new niche items Tenderstem and Bellaverde a good head start -and shows that with a little encouragement consumers can be persuaded to take more brassicas off the shelf.
Across the UK, production of Tenderstem broccoli is expanding dramatically this year to deliver higher volumes of home-grown crop to consumers. The campaign has been funded by the main growers and marketing bodies in Africa and the UK, and is a good example of a unified group of companies working towards a common goal.
Certainly some producers question whether the broadbrush approach will succeed. “Is this possible in such a large sector with conflicting interests and a high level of competition, where suppliers are willing to undercut each other to maintain their space on the shelf?” one grower asks.
One strength that the industry seems to have is a willingness to work with its main customers, the supermarkets, which has proven a step in the right direction. Whatever the relationships between the multiples and growers, brassica growers have realised the danger in cutting off their nose to spite their face. As the Love Your Greens campaign gains momentum, it is hoped that it will be seen to deserve further financial backing. However, the fact remains that it doesn’t matter how much a product is pushed forward - if it isn’t what consumers want, it will not succeed.
Only further investment in new product development and co-operation within the brassica industry will ensure the sector is sustainable in the long term, but producers hope they are now turning a corner.
TAKING CONTROL OF THE SITUATION
The brassica sector needs to take responsibility for itself, says Simon Eley, co-owner of Lincolnshire-based family firm Chris Eley (Produce) Ltd, which grows cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, white, pointed and green cabbage and broccoli for the multiples. “The industry will find a level and according to supply and demand, it will be survival of the fittest. Companies will keep going regardless of the pressures and we will be here in 20 years’ time.
“The main problem we face as growers is pest control and that is mainly to do with pigeon damage; these birds are literally eating away at our yield. We also struggle with white fly control and our pesticide armoury is being reduced all the time.
“As ever, the fresh produce industry is on a rollercoaster with the wealth generated dictating quantity and quality of product available. The weather keeps us on our toes and two weeks ago it was hot and dry, which made the plants sick and now the rain has come the crop will be heavier.
“We have seen a rise in demand for Brussels sprouts on the stalk, but a demise in the cauliflower trade. Cauliflower is just one of those things that has gone out of fashion because the customer has so many other choices. It is convenience of use that gives other products their influence on the market.”
SPROUTING HOPE
Grower and supermarket supplier Staples is a third-generation brassica producer, growing a selection of vegetables in both Boston, Lincolnshire, and on the Isle of Wight.
The company, run by brothers Vernon and George Read, has been harvesting new-season purple sprouting broccoli for the last four weeks and now manages to grow the product for 11 months of the year.
“It is difficult to get 12-month supply as the winter can be a difficult time for purple sprouting broccoli, especially last winter when there were many frosts,” says George. “Normally, in Lincolnshire there is a gap around April and May for about three weeks, and we take our production to our farm on the Isle of Wight in the winter. We also grow cauliflower and pointed cabbage in the Isle of Wight during the winter.”
Purple sprouting broccoli is not a large part of Staples’ portfolio and yield levels vary considerably according to the weather, but George maintains that, although demand is static, over the last seven years the company has increased the land planted with purple sprouting broccoli, from 20 to 200 acres.
“It is a very labour-intensive crop and harvesting is expensive as it has to be hand picked. We had a lot of waste product this winter because of frost. Purple sprouting broccoli is very temperature-sensitive, as are a lot of brassicas.”
LOVE ME TENDER(STEM)
More UK vegetable growers are being encouraged to grow Tenderstem broccoli - a cross between broccoli and Chinese kale - in response to consumer demand for the product, originally grown in Kenya and Morocco.
An established Jersey Royal potato and cut flower grower, Richard Le Cornu added Tenderstem broccoli to his Jersey-based, 100-acre farm called Devon Villa in the early 1990s.
“I really started growing Tenderstem broccoli purely by luck when a friend asked me to try it out,” says Le Cornu. “We started growing Tenderstem broccoli in earnest in 1992, initially on two acres of land, which we have expanded to 30 acres today. Tenderstem accounts for 30 per cent of the business and the crop is primarily destined for the retail market, mainly supermarkets.
Jersey provides the ideal conditions for growing Tenderstem for the UK market through the summer and autumn months. The temperate climate, with adequate rainfall through the summer, and good soil conditions are key and the Tenderstem crop works synergistically with Jersey Royal potatoes. The broccoli is planted in the same field after Jersey Royals have been harvested from the end of May until September and the crop benefits from the nutrients remaining in the soil from the production of Jersey Royals. In turn, the potato crop benefits from the lime added to the soil during the production of Tenderstem, as brassica crops require a high Ph.
“I really enjoy the challenges of farming and take great pleasure from watching a crop pass through the various stages from planting to harvesting and then marketing,” says Le Cornu. “The best thing for me is that no two days are ever the same. I couldn’t imagine sitting in an office, doing the same routine day in, day out.”
SAVING THE CAULIFLOWER
Broccoli, Savoy cabbage and cauliflower grower Alistair Godwin of the Fred Grant Company produces on two sites in Freiston and Midville, Lancashire, on a collective 1,700 acres and supplies Produce World and Staples.
“A cauli is a cauli, and our industry has not been able to break that mould,” says Godwin. “We need to look at how we can change consumer perception and relate to our end customers. Cauliflower growers have been helped recently by the discontinuation of old grading regulations on size. It will be interesting to see how this will affect us and it will be good to see supermarkets start to stock different sizes. It is something we need to work on with the supermarkets. They have started to push back the job of category management to the industry, which is giving us a real chance.”
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