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- California’s Sweet Baby Broccoli
- Growers increase acreage, sales of
hybrid of broccoli and Chinese kale
- By Lisa Lieberman
California Correspondent
- As consumer demand for new and more diverse types of vegetables grows, growers of a new hybrid of baby broccoli have been increasing their acreage and sales of the baby broccoli.
The baby broccoli hybrid is a cross between broccoli and Chinese kale and is sold under the trade name asparation by Mann Packing Co., Inc., and as asparation by Sanbon Inc., El Centro, Calif. So far, Mann Packing and Sanbon are the only two shippers licensed to sell the baby broccoli, which was developed by Sakata Seed America Inc., in Morgan Hill, Calif.
One of the appeals of baby broccoli is that it has a sweeter, milder taste than regular broccoli and has a similar taste profile to asparagus. Baby broccoli is also entirely edible, said Bruce Sanbonmatsu, president of Sanbon.
“There’s no preparation involved. No cutting, peeling. All you have to do is take off the rubber band around the bunch and cook it,” said Sabonmatsu. Sanbon began doing field tests of asparation in 1994 and released the product commercially in 1997.
“The first year was hit or miss because no one knew what to do. The second year we did extremely well and went onto limited production,” Sanbonmatsu said.
Sanbon started off growing asparation from November through May. Now because of high consumer demand, the company gave up on its bok choy operation and focuses mostly on growing asparation along the Ensenata Coast from early April through mid December and in the Mexicali Valley for the rest of the year.
Joe Nucci of Mann Packing in Salinas said that he grows baby broccoli, also called broccolini, in Salinas in spring and in Yuma, Ariz. in winter. The biggest challenge in growing broccolini is that it’s such a relatively new crop, Nucci said.
“There’s no history with this crop. We don’t have 10, 20 or 30 years of experience in trying to figure things out. We’re making history as we speak,” Nucci said.
Another challenge with the baby broccoli is that it is extremely labor intensive and very expensive to harvest, Sanbonmatsu said. Since baby broccoli has less density than regular broccoli, the plants are more susceptible to fluctuations in the weather, said Craig Kodama, a grower for Sanbon.
“Asparation is such a sensitive product. Every year it’s a challenge, because you don’t get the same weather, and it’s so new we’re finding out that it can be readily effected by climactic changes,” Kodama said.
Similar to asparagus, cold weather can cause the plants to shut down. “If it gets real cold, the plant shuts down, and you can put a ton of fertilizer on it and it won’t do anything,” Kodama said.
During warmer weather, asparation tends to lose some of its quality due to the heat, Kodama said. “We’ve been working with different watering patterns (in the warmer weather). We’ve tried doing watering more often or doing heavier watering. We haven’t come to a real solution yet. We do know that overwatering the plants can make them shut down,” Kodama said.
Baby broccoli receives many of the same inputs that regular broccoli does to ward off common pests such as aphids. Since baby broccoli is more sensitive than broccoli, care has to be exercised when applying fertilizer, Kodama said.
Asparation needs to receive more frequent doses of nitrogen, phosphate and potassium, which are more evenly spread out through the growing season, Kodama said.
“With the asparation, it needs fertilizer a little more often because (unlike) broccoli that we cut one time, we cut the asparation six or seven times, so we don’t want to put all the fertilizer on at once, because it’s not just one or two crops, it’s several,” Kodama said.
Harvesting the asparation is one of the biggest challenges in growing the crop, Kodama said. Because the asparation must be harvested six times in a season, it has to stay healthy through multiple cuts to keep sprouting new shoots.
Workers also have to be careful when harvesting the shoots that they pick the right ones and don’t damage young shoots that will be needed for harvest later in the season. When the shoots get to be about six to eight inches long; the harvest manager does taste tests to see if it is ready.
“It’s definitely not a quick (process). The harvest manager could bite into one shoot that tastes fine and have something identical and have to spit it out,” Kodama said. Harvest managers can spend most of the day testing different blocks. “But if you go into one block, you’re pretty safe if you’ve been watering the whole block at the same time. Different blocks that have different irrigation patterns can vary in taste,” Kodama said.
Aside from the growing problems, once it’s picked, asparation has good shelf life compared to broccoli, Kodama said. “Its shelf life is at least as good, maybe better than broccoli. It doesn’t get a real toughness the longer it sits the way broccoli does,” Kodama said.
Longer shelf life is one of the appeals to retailers who are buying more baby broccoli, Sanbon said. White tablecloth restaurants, which are looking for unique side dishes have also been buying more baby broccoli, Sanbon said.
Baby broccoli is relatively expensive at retail, sometimes selling for about $1.99 per 8-ounce bunch or $3.98 per pound at grocery stores, Sanbonmatsu said.
In order to try to hook more cost conscious consumers, Sanbon came out with a new four-ounce bunch which sells for 99 cents per bunch. “Psychologically for 99 cents, people are willing to give it a try,” Sanbonmatsu said.
Once consumers get hooked, they’re more willing to spend more on larger bunches, Sanbonmatsu said. Baby broccoli has been selling well in large metropolitan areas, especially in retail chains, which advertise the baby broccoli.
“In San Diego, in 14 stores in one retail chain, we moved 1,200 cases in a two-week period,” Sanbonmatsu said. In order to make asparation more convenient for consumers, Sanbon has been trying to encourage retailers to emphasize how easy it is to cook as a side dish or to use as a dipping vegetable during the holidays.
Seasonally, baby broccoli also seems to do especially well around the holidays when people become less frugal and have less time to spend cooking elaborate meals, said Gina Nucci, food service marketing manager at Mann Packing in Salinas.
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