World

‘I think about sprouts every day’: Inside the Dutch factory growing your Christmas vegetables

Published

3 years ago

December 25, 2022

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In the world of Christmas vegetables, nothing is more divisive than a Brussels sprout.

And here, as I look out over a factory in the Netherlands, they are everywhere.

It is like Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, but recast in sprout form.

They roll along conveyor belts, get poured into huge machinery and tumble into chutes.

They’re photographed and lifted, sized and sorted, packed and chilled.

It is relentless, like watching a green magma flow. As more and more sprouts are delivered from farms, so they are fed into the machinery, and so the slow march goes on and on.

If you like sprouts (spoiler alert: I do) then this is a mesmerising sight.

Sprouts of all sizes are whizzing around us, being divided into huge wheeled tubs that fill up in minutes. The Dutch like the small ones. The biggest are off to Germany.

And there, in the middle, are the containers for the British. We like smaller Brussels sprouts with a crisp taste.

The fine sprouts, as they are described to me.

The world centre of sprout-growing

Peter van’t Woudt is the site manager at the Primeale factory in the Netherlands – the world centre of sprout-growing.

As the sprouts roll in, he studies them constantly, running his hand through the vat as it fills up.

This is a crucial time of the year in the Brussels sprout world.

“We are running for 24 hours per day,” he said, looking round his factory.

“This is the time of the year when we all have to work hard because everyone wants the sprouts. But here, we are a team.”

On a good day, it can take 34 hours for the sprouts to go from entering this factory to the shelves of a British supermarket, and being snapped up soon after.

It’s reckoned that British shoppers buy something like 750 million sprouts over the Christmas period, but that only around half of them will actually be eaten.

It is the vegetable that you either love or hate and, yes, even within the sprout factory I met some people who love them, despite spending the whole day staring at sprouts, and others who couldn’t bear the taste.

How do you even harvest a sprout in winter?

Then there is Jack’s Gravemade, whose job is to use infrared cameras to weed out the bad sprouts.

He said he used to hate them as a child, but has now become a devout fan.

This has been a tough year for them, he said, with the long hot summer affecting sprouts.

Last year, only about 8% of sprouts were deemed unacceptable: now it’s double that.

That’s tough for the farmers. Half an hour away, we are standing in a muddy field, talking to Frederique Sonneveld, Primeale’s product manager with oversight of Brussels sprouts, and she is worried.

Her parents worked in sprouts, and so did their parents before.

There is nothing she doesn’t know about these things, which is handy because really all I know is how to cook and eat them.

Sprouts grow out of the ground – they really do sprout up – on all sides of a thick stalk.

To harvest them, a slow-moving vehicle runs along the line of vegetables, with four people sitting in the front.

Huge cutters trim the stalk at ground level, then it gets lifted by hand and fed into a hole where a hidden machine strips the sprouts from the stalk.

The problem is that you can’t do any of this if the ground is frozen. And right now, the weather is cold, which is why Ms Sonneveld is worried.

“I’m nervous because this is such an important time of the year, but we can’t do anything if it’s too cold. We need to harvest as much as we can but…”, she shrugs and smiles a slightly anxious smile.

“They need our care and our love.”

‘I think about sprouts every day’

There is, of course, nothing you can do about the vagaries of nature.

The summer was difficult, she explained, but it wasn’t the only problem.

The spiralling price of energy has made farming more expensive, and so has inflation in the labour market. Sprouting sprouts is an expensive business these days.

Ms Sonneveld is an avowed fan of the taste of the sprout, although she does look bewildered when I ask if she eats them every day.

“I think about them every day, but I don’t always eat them,” she replied. Probably very wise.

She presents me with what she considers to be the most beautiful example she can find – perfect size, no flaky leaves and a glistening sheen.

“Bling, bling,” she said, handing it over. Not, if I’m honest, an expression I’ve ever associated with a Brussels sprout before.

But it is unarguably a nice looking sprout. It’s the one I’m holding in our television report, and which I’m going to eat shortly.

The fact is that a huge amount of time, effort, money, passion and planning goes into delivering the humble sprout to your table. They are cherished and loved, coaxed to grow, and then sped to your table.

And all that for something that half of you won’t want. It’s a cruel life, being a Brussels sprout.

World

At least 30 dead and 100 injured as armed groups clash in Syria, officials say

Published

10 hours ago

July 14, 2025

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At least 30 dead and 100 injured as armed groups clash in Syria, officials say

At least 30 people have been killed in the Syrian city of Sweida in clashes between local military groups and tribes, according to Syria’s interior ministry.

Officials say initial figures suggest around 100 people have also been injured in the city, where the Druze faith is one of the major religious groups.

The interior ministry said its forces will directly intervene to resolve the conflict, which the Reuters news agency said involved fighting between Druze gunmen and Bedouin Sunni tribes.

It marks the latest episode of sectarian violence in Syria, where fears among minority groups have increased since Islamist-led rebels toppled President Bashar al Assad in December, installing their own government and security forces.

The violence reportedly erupted after a wave of kidnappings, including the abduction of a Druze merchant on Friday on the highway linking Damascus to Sweida.

Last April, Sunni militia clashed with armed Druze residents of Jaramana, southeast of Damascus, and fighting later spread to another district near the capital.

But this is the first time the fighting has been reported inside the city of Sweida itself, the provincial capital of the mostly Druze province.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reports the fighting was centred in the Maqwas neighbourhood east of Sweida and villages on the western and northern outskirts of the city.

It adds that Syria’s Ministry of Defence has deployed military convoys to the area.

Western nations, including the US and UK, have been increasingly moving towards normalising relations with Syria.

Concerns among minority groups have intensified following the killing of hundreds of Alawites in March, in apparent retaliation for an earlier attack carried out by Assad loyalists.

That was the deadliest sectarian flare-up in years in Syria, where a 14-year civil war ended with Assad fleeing to Russia after his government was overthrown by rebel forces.

The city of Sweida is in southern Syria, about 24 miles (38km) north of the border with Jordan.

World

Meredith Kercher’s killer faces new trial over sexual assault allegations

Published

22 hours ago

July 13, 2025

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Meredith Kercher's killer faces new trial over sexual assault allegations

The man convicted of the murder of British student Meredith Kercher has been charged with sexual assault against an ex-girlfriend.

Rudy Guede, 38, was the only person who was definitively convicted of the murder of 21-year-old Ms Kercher in Perugia, Italy, back in 2007.

He will be standing trial again in November after an ex-girlfriend filed a police report in the summer of 2023 accusing Guede of mistreatment, personal injury and sexual violence.

Guede, from the Ivory Coast, was released from prison for the murder of Leeds University student Ms Kercher in 2021, after having served about 13 years of a 16-year sentence.

Since last year – when this investigation was still ongoing – Guede has been under a “special surveillance” regime, Sky News understands, meaning he was banned from having any contact with the woman behind the sexual assault allegations, including via social media, and had to inform police any time he left his city of residence, Viterbo, as ruled by a Rome court.

Guede has been serving a restraining order and fitted with an electronic ankle tag.

The Kercher murder case, in the university city of Perugia, was the subject of international attention.

Ms Kercher, a 21-year-old British exchange student, was found murdered in the flat she shared with her American roommate, Amanda Knox.

The Briton’s throat had been cut and she had been stabbed 47 times.

Ms Knox and her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were placed under suspicion.

Both were initially convicted of murder, but Italy’s highest court overturned their convictions, acquitting them in 2015.

World

IDF blames ‘technical error’ after Gaza officials say children collecting water killed in strike

Published

1 day ago

July 13, 2025

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IDF blames 'technical error' after Gaza officials say children collecting water killed in strike

The Israeli military says it missed its intended target after Gaza officials said 10 Palestinians – including six children – were killed in a strike at a water collection point.

Another 17 people were wounded in the strike on a water distribution point in Nuseirat refugee camp, said Ahmed Abu Saifan, an emergency physician at Al Awda Hospital.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said it had intended to hit an Islamic Jihad militant but a “technical error with the munition” had caused the missile to fall “dozens of metres from the target”.

The IDF said the incident is under review, adding that it “works to mitigate harm to uninvolved civilians as much as possible” and “regrets any harm to uninvolved civilians”.

Officials at Al Awda Hospital said it received 10 bodies after the Israeli strike on the water collection point and six children were among the dead.

Ramadan Nassar, who lives in the area, said around 20 children and 14 adults were lined up Sunday morning to fill up water.

When the strike occurred, everyone ran and some, including those who were severely injured, fell to the ground, he said.

In total, 19 people were killed in Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, local health officials said.

Two women and three children were among nine killed after an Israeli strike on a home in the central town of Zawaida, officials at Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital said.

Israel has claimed it hit more than 150 targets in the besieged enclave in the past day.

The latest strikes come after the Israel military opened fire near an aid centre in Rafah on Saturday. The Red Cross said 31 people were killed.

The IDF has said it fired “warning shots” near the aid distribution site but it was “not aware of injured individuals” as a result.

The war in Gaza started in response to Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, which killed 1,200 people and saw about 250 taken hostage.

More than 58,000 Palestinians have since been killed, with more than half being women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count.

US President Donald Trump has said he is closing in on another ceasefire agreement that would see more hostages released and potentially wind down the war.

But after two days of talks this week with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, there were no signs of a breakthrough, as a new sticking point emerged over the deployment of Israeli troops during the truce.

Hamas still holds 50 hostages, with fewer than half of them believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.