Local Food Heroes - Stephen Wheeler speaks to Martin Haines of Chipping Campden
Brussel sprouts may have been voted Britain’s most hated vegetable but we still chomp our way through around 35,000 tonnes of them a year, and 2,500 tonnes of them are grown under our Gloucestershire noses by brothers Martin and William Haines of Chipping Campden. I visited them during their busiest time of the year – picking and packing surges 300% in the lead up to Christmas! Staff numbers peak at 100 pickers in the fields and another 70 in the warehouse, sending off orders to the likes of Marks and Spencer and Creed Foodservice of Cheltenham. Martin told me that their best sprout peelers will each prepare around 200 kilos a day – that’s enough for 1000 Christmas lunches!
The Haines family have been farming in Chipping Campden for over 300 years and they now cultivate 2000 acres from Worcester to Stow-on-the-Wold. Brussels are their largest crop, but in season they send to market other brassicas, broad beans, peas, marrows, courgettes and squashes. They also now contract grow in Morocco and South Africa to fulfil UK demand for brussels during the summer months!
I asked Martin why the Cotswolds are so good for growing Brussel sprouts. “Whiskey is best from the Scottish Highlands, wine from the Loire Valley in France. There’s something in the Cotswold soil that gives sprouts a unique depth of flavour and sweetness,” he said. With varietal names reminiscent of Greek gods, such as Maximus, Crispus and Helimus, sprouts may not be everyone’s idea of heaven, but they are good for you. An equal serving of Brussels will give you three times more vitamin C than an orange, lots of fibre, no cholesterol and high levels of cancer fighting anti-oxidants. And yes, the Haines brothers can taste the difference between a Crispus and a Helimus!
The Romans in Britain originally cultivated our must-have Christmas vegetable, but they were first mass produced around 1200 AD in what is now Belgium. Now African grown Brussels appear on supermarket shelves in July and make way for English-grown from September to April. “We have been successful in marketing this wonderful vegetable nearly all year round’” Martin told me, but I still like them best sweated off in butter with chopped shallots, mixed with creamy mash, and fried till they’re golden brown as a post Christmas bubble and squeak treat!
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19th December 2009
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