Every year, around Christmas, REO Veiling honours the growers of common hop shoots. The history of common hops goes back a long way and the product is known as an exclusive delicacy.
“Common hop shoots used to only be picked in open ground. This limited the season to three weeks. Due to cultivation research and developments Poperinge common hop shoots can now also be grown in a heated place. This lengthens the season by four months and makes common hop shoots available from the Christmas period until mid April,” according to REO’s commercial director Dominiek Keersebilck. The Poperinge product will only increase in exclusivity he says, as the area has been decreasing for years. “It is mainly passionate growers who are working to keep this delicate crop alive,” says Dominiek. An effort which has been recognised by the European Commission after years of lobbying, with the common hop shoots now recognised as a regional product.
Quality label
“As a step up to Europe the growers have been using the VLAM streekproduct.be label since 2007,” says Dominiek. “After this Flemish recognition and with support of the REO Veiling, European recognition of Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) followed in 2013. The commission saw sufficient connections between the properties of common hop shoots and the ground it is grown in. Partially due to this the Poperinge common hop shoots can compete easily with cheaper variations that are grown using the labour intensive process in Eastern Europe increasingly often. By extension the REO Veiling has been marketing Poperinge common hop shoots under the quality label Fine Fleur, REO Veiling’s home brand since 2014.
Creativity
Despite the area decreasing, Dominiek sees the versatility of the common hop shoots increase each year. “The first box is auctioned around Christmas to be supplied to famous chefs such as Sergio Herman. They create fantastic dishes with the common hop shoots. The results of the biennial competition between young top chefs also shows that the product is loved and has enough opportunities to supply connoisseurs with this delicacy. The common hop shoot is also hitching a ride on the trend of so-called forgotten vegetables being put in the spotlights.”
The limited availability means that the modern consumer is more likely to find the common hop on their plate in the better restaurants rather than on the shelves of the local supermarket. “With a harvest of around 1500 kilos per year and the price of 75 Euro per kilo it makes little sense to create more demand,” according to Dominiek. (AB)
More information:
REO Veiling
Dominiek Keersebilck
More information:
REO Veiling
Dominiek Keersebilck