TH Clements from Lincolnshire, is set to harvest a whopping 1,500 tons of Brussels sprouts for the supermarket giant Tesco this holiday season. Tesco has sold around 150 million Brussels sprouts every year for the past 35 years and they are expecting the same this time around.
The UK growers say it takes 18 months of planning, planting, picking and packing for the firm to produce good sprouts. Over the two weeks leading up to Christmas, Tesco plan to sell an estimated 3 million packs of pre-pack sprouts, which makes up 30 per cent of Tesco's total annual sprout sales.
Each sprout plant is grown individually from seed in a green house before being transplanted into the field. It takes 10 months from seed to grow sprouts, and so TH Clements are already planning Christmas 2017.
Once picked, they are far from done however and must still go through the process of being cooled, graded for quality and size, and packed. They are then sent to Tesco distribution centres and will soon be on shelves for customers to buy for Christmas dinner.
