Koppert Cress launched a type of samphire, Salicornia cress, in June and was gathering customers’ responses to the product at The Restaurant Show 2008, Earls Court, last week.
The company has been producing the product - sometimes known as sea fennel - on natural fibres within greenhouses to provide a year-round supply. However, it is naturally found on the English and French coastlines.
The latest addition to the Dutch micro-vegetable producer’s cress portfolio has failed to set the catering world alight, but UK marketing manager Anneke Cuppen believes that this is purely due to bad timing.
“We launched the product at a time when there was a lot of samphire on the market from India and Israel,” she said. “And because the products from these origins are cheaply priced, people did not really give Salicornia a chance.
“But now competition has cleared, and there is not a lot of samphire on the market, our customers are building up. We should have really launched the product a couple of weeks ago instead. Hopefully, caterers will get used to the constant quality Salicornia provides and will not want to go back to other sources when their seasons start again,” added Cuppen.
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