Levin vegetable growers say Asian greens demand has risen 400 percent in the past couple of years.
Since seeing the growing demand in the market four years ago, Woodhaven Gardens has ramped up plantings of Asian greens.
The company grows Shanghai bok choi, pak choi, wombok or Chinese cabbage, saigon turnips and coriander, according to Jay Clarke.
“We started with some trials and things have really taken off, we’ve seen some of our traditional lines coming back in volume and becoming less popular things like green cabbage and iceberg lettuce but the shanghai bok choi, wombok and saigon turnip have really grown in popularity,” Clarke stated.
“In the last two to three years we’ve seen growth of between 300 and 400 percent in those lines.”
Clarke believes New Zealanders are expanding their culinary expertise and trying new foods, which is leading to the growth in demand.
“People are going out there experiencing different foods when they’re eating out and then they’re bringing those culinary choices into their own home.
“With access to the internet and online cooking shows and even programmes like My Food Bag and HelloFresh they’re putting different recipes into New Zealand households so people are exploring more and finding that there are ways to eat fresh, healthy vegetables and tasty dishes that are a little bit different from what we’ve traditionally done in New Zealand.”
“Pest control can be a little problematic but other than that they are fun crops to grow, they’re quiet handy for us because we can direct drill them rather than transplant so there’s a step in the process that we don’t have to go through that we do with things like lettuce and broccoli, so they’re efficient vegetables to grow.”
Source : rnz.co.nz
