Event at New Covent Garden Market demonstrates potential of premium microgreens and their role in changing modern cuisine
New Covent Garden Market catering distributor Harwoods of London teamed up with Koppert Cress on 23 September for an event at Mission Kitchen to inspire London chefs to use more microgreens.
The Dutch breeder and grower of cress and microgreens is known for producing innovative ingredients that chefs can use to intensify the flavour, aroma, or presentation of their dishes.
Chef Franck Pontais, country and culinary manager at Koppert Cress, took chefs on a tour of the Koppert range. He explained the distinctive flavours and uses of a wide array of products – from Feathertops to Sechuan Buttons, and from Floregano to Salty Fingers.
The group of chefs was welcomed into the specially designed ‘Tasting Garden’ at Mission Kitchen by Pontais and Harwoods MD Jim Dew.
A lunch created by Koppert’s own chefs to showcase the company’s range of varieties and tastes was bookended by a hands-on ‘World of Plants’ workshop with Pontais. He demonstrated the potential of premium microgreens and their role in changing modern cuisine.
“Our cresses are the freshly sprouted seedlings of 100 per cent natural aromatic plants,” said Pontais. “They offer a freshness and intensity of taste and aroma that, are only found in young seedlings.”
Adding that the plants are “much more than cress”, he outlined ways in which chefs can optimise usage – and minimise waste – by using parts of each plant that they may ordinarily have thrown away in innovative ways.
Harwoods has been selling Koppert’s range for 30 years and is the number one distributor in London.
Dew said: “We started out selling Daikon Cress and Shiso Purple and now we stock more than 40 of their lines throughout the year. The demand is phenomenal.”
An extensive digital marketing campaign in summer 2024 has promoted Koppert microgreens in London and Harwoods is distributing them in its Koppert-branded van.
