Brussels Sprouts – do you love them or hate them ? Well in my job there is only one answer.  I’m the M&S Agronomist in charge of delivering the best quality sprouts to our customers. This is quite a responsibility as 1 in every 4 sprouts sold during Christmas (in the UK) is an M&S sprout! This year I’m particularly excited about our newest offering. What’s new  about our sprouts ? They’re red! Like red onions and red cabbage, the sprouts are in fact more purple in colour and keep their colourful hue even when cooked.

The colouring is extremely important as with it comes additional health benefits. Red vegetables naturally contain higher levels of vitamin C than green sprouts, although they should be cooked lightly with steam or in a microwave to preserve the anthocyanin and vitamin C. They’ve been grown by Andrew and Frank Roger who have been working with M&S since 1976. It has taken a lot of time and effort to solve some of the challenges of growing red sprouts so I’m really delighted to see them finally on the shelf. We hope you like them –try them and let us know what you think !

Our sprouts are grown in 3 areas of the UK – Chipping Campden, Fife and Angus in Scotland. I have already visited my growers twice this year to look at their Christmas sprouts (they were planted back in May) and so far they are looking very good. We’re lucky to work with some of the best British growers who go to great lengths to protect the environment and improve biodiversity where they farm. Peter Stirling from Angus and his team are also obsessed with quality. They harvest the entire stalk in the field and then hand trim each of the buttons from the stalk when it arrives at the packhouse. This gives much better quality and helps to improve shelf life. A number of our customers have asked for these so you can now buy ‘sprout trees’ in store.

The next 4 weeks are critical and my worst fear is heavy frosts and snow-fall the week before Christmas. This hampers the harvest and makes supply more challenging. This is what happened last year but we have several sprout contingency plans in place and these were activated to save the day –  after all Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without Sprouts!

I love sprouts and have even been known to eat them raw in the field to make sure they taste just right. This was not always the case and certainly as a small child they were not my favourite. Since then however new varieties have been selected that taste sweeter and if they are lightly steamed (or better still pan fried with bacon!) then no bitterness should be apparent and you have a vegetable that delivers vitamin C and a wealth of other healthy nutrients that do our bodies good – so eat up!

We’re always interested in hearing about the best way to cook Brussels sprouts – what’s your secret recipe ?