"We are now in the aftermath of the EHEC-crisis problems, which was proven to have been caused by sprouts. We are constantly confronted with the risks and sometimes it's as though it covers up how good our sector is and the positive developments this product group has brought in the areas of volume, sales and marketing valued and safe products in the past ten to fifteen years", Cor says.
Now it's 2012 and the Advisory Committee on the Microbiological Safety of Food published in British media that sprouts are a health risk. "With this, partially unjustified, way of publishing facts, the sector will never rebound", sighs Cor. "But I know how the article was made. English sprout growers are partial to telling consumers to use sprouts for cooking."
"This position is supported by the British Fresh Produce Consortium. This institute represents a wide variety of wholesalers and even research institutes. But I can understand this, because why would a tomato grower worry about cooking sprouts", says Cor. "The article is an attempt to get the 'cooking story' back into place. A bad plan, most peers agree that a sector should solve its own problems and use innovation to improve their position and not just dump the problem on the consumer."
"Besides, the health contribution of fresh fruit and vegetables and therefore also sprouts is a lot higher than the risks, which are minor incidents. We, as human beings, should ensure our own health, which can be done by eating fresh vegetables. Many health aspects go down the drain with the cooking liquid. The advice to cook everything is very safety conscious, but loses out on certain nutritious content. Just like eating pots of baby food. Very safe, but if you don't eat anything fresh, you miss health aspects. In short, you should cook if you don't trust the ingredient at all. But there's no reason for that in the sprout sector."
Aftermath of EHEC
"The priority during and right after the EHEC epidemic was to keep floating and not sink. The sector was always targeted and consciously busy marketing our product before the outbreak of EHEC. Now a number of us can no longer allocate money and we have to be savvier than in the past. Luckily the GroentenFruit Bureau planned a promotion campaign for sprouts and greenhouse vegetables, aimed at the German market. So it is being worked on."Cor did learn a lot from the massive amount of press attention during the EHEC crisis. "You're battling in a glass house. And your first reaction is to run away from trouble, but we didn't do that. Everyone with a little knowledge of microbiology, knows that we don't have an easy product. it's our responsibility to make it controllable and ensure that the consumer regains faith in these products."
The grower concludes. "We have to regain ourselves as individual companies, but we're taking a stand. Even if we have to spend our last cent, we will not be wiped off the map! We will have to communicate more than ever that our sprouts are still alive, have a future and that there are more products here!"
Response of fellow grower:
According to a fellow sprout grower the reason for the accusing investigations is that the checks are much stricter and are held more often. "The best checked vegetables are bean sprouts and sprouts. This makes the risk of finding something bigger. I can say with 99.99% certainty that my product is safe, but you have to be honest. If someone touches my product with dirty hands on its way or if a cook doesn't wash their hands, then there's a risk. It's the same on the market. But the whole range of checks we do tightly, from pre-checks to after-check and from seed checks to entry check and we never find anything!"
"But vegetable are generally the safest product you can buy. Vegetables are part of a healthy lifestyle. And if you look at all the recall lately, can we no longer eat melons of papaya's? What are we supposed to do? All eat fruit and vegetables from a pot, packet or bag?"
For more information:
Cor Hurkx
Evers Specials
Stationsstraat 33
6515 AA, Nijmegen
Tel: 0243481422
Fax: 0243482140
Mob: 0653345194
E: [email protected]