The sprout season has been underway for some time now, and growers are still busy with production. One of them is Stijn Van de Voorde, who operates near the Belgian town of Mechelen. His sprouts occupy a range of 2 hectares. "Harvesting is still by hand and works just fine. It's pretty laborious of course. We just started harvesting the early varieties and the quality is good."
"We do notice that the yield is less than it used to be, even though it is by no means scarce. It's likely the weather had something to do with it, because the crops are smaller, but fortunately the quality is excellent. A new variety we've been trying out is the Divino. This one in particular is outperforming our expectations, and we plan to go ahead with it."
"Demands are at a reasonable level," says Stijn, "Prices are between 1.5 and 2 Euro, which is relatively high. Probably because the yield is lower than anticipated. The prospects are good though: good quality and great demands, what more could you want?"