The story of vegetable sprout trader Heuschen and Schrouff started in the 60’s when the Heuschen family (in-laws of founder Frits Schrouff) offered shelter to Indonesian refugees in Southern Limburg. “These people weren’t fans of Brussels sprouts and lettuce, so Frits started looking for Asian products,” says general director Marc Boits. “Products like rice and spices were brought to Limburg through the port of Rotterdam and Frits started the production of fresh beansprouts. This made us a European pioneer in the cultivation and sales of Asian sprout vegetables. In the end the refugees left the centre and integrated into society. The demand for beansprouts, however, remained and Frits decided to continue growing the vegetable sprouts and make home deliveries with a van. Now the fleet has grown to 40 trucks, which supply Asian products and fresh beansprouts to customers in Germany, Austria and the Benelux.”
Cultivation
The vegetables’ journey to the customer starts in the sprouting chambers in Landgraaf. “The cultivation at the start was quite primitive, with some plastic trays,” says Marc. “Now we have grown from small plastic crates to six large cultivation rooms where the mung beans sprout into fresh bean sprout with a mostly computer controlled dose of light, water and oxygen. The advantage of the partial automation is that we have optimal control of the output and can harvest a more constant yield of around 600 kilos per day per cultivation container. The harvest mainly goes to tokos (Asian food shops) and the wholesalers.” A growing sales group is the processing industry. “Nowadays thousands of tonnes go there for processing into snacks, soup and ready meals,” adds account manager Françoise Cardoen.
Marc estimates that around 60% goes to the ethnic route and 40% to the retail and industry. “There are more applications for recipes with beansprout but the largest sales still go to the Asian community. The composition of the product also remains the same. The whiteness remains important and so does the shelf life, of course.”
Freshness
Heuschen and Schrouff has lost its place as the only bean sprout supplier since the 60s. “That would be an ideal situation of course, but competition keeps us on our toes.” On a European scale the cultivation of vegetable sprouts remains a niche, however, and this caused the necessity of uniting as a branch. We are part of the European Sprouted Seed Association (ESSA), for instance. This branch union functions as a mouthpiece towards the European Commission and to both national and international food and wares authorities.”
According to Marc, the ESSA shows the power of collaboration at a time of crisis, such as during the EHEC outbreak in the past, which bean sprouts were falsely accused of. The insecurity among consumers wasn’t missed by Heuschen and Schrouff. “After the crisis the situation normalised in a year and is now fully recovered,” according to Marc. “Food safety remains an important point of attention. Due to our years of experience we already had professional, safe production, but this was further strengthened in 2013 by addition laws from the European Union which means that there are now more checks on the raw materials and the cultivation process”
Mung bean
According to Marc there is now more insight into the origin and quality of the main ingredient: the mung bean. “Some Chinese growers were temporarily denied access to the European market, as the European regulations weren’t being completely met. But this has now also recovered. Now that the EHEC crisis has been over for a while and all faith has recovered, the commission is mainly focussing on prevention, such as setting up a hygiene guide, guidelines for the production of vegetable sprouts and training raw material suppliers, in discussion with the ESSA.”
For now the cultivation of the mung beans for the cultivation of bean sprouts is limited to Asian countries. “It’s a sensitive plant of which the quality is strongly tied to the climate. Besides this the plant needs a lot of space and the cultivation and harvest takes a lot of man power,” explains Françoise.
Price level
The higher labour costs for European cultivation wouldn’t be good for the beansprout market, as the prices are already too low for what is a great product. Because beansprout in its current appearance is quite a generic product, the prices in the market are at a reasonably comparable level. At most there is some difference in the shelf life but in general the price of the mung bean is a high cost factor and an accomplished fact for every grower.
Development
The market hasn’t been sitting still, but Marc also doesn’t see many striking developments. “There are still packaging in 10 kilo bulk. The effect on the shelf life is minimal. I have sometimes said jokingly that people used to only sell white asparagus and now that the green variety is also available, it is perhaps even more popular than the original variation. It wouldn’t surprise me if we have green beansprouts in the future. There are some new ideas and techniques for widening the assortment sprouting. However, they are still in too early a stage to say anything about them.”
If the fresh trend continues the demand for beansprout will rise according to Françoise and Marc. “It’s like divining between application and quality optimisation,” says Françoise, “Because the trade is mainly business to business, we don’t have consumer focused campaigns, but mainly focus on informing our partners of the possibilities of beansprout. Consumers now once again see beansprout as a healthy vegetable with few calories and many vitamins. Besides the characteristics, consumers have to see the possibilities of preparation and consumption of the sprout vegetables. We see a good role for food blogs and cooks here.” (AB)
fcardoen@heuschenschrouff.com