In the Netherlands, approximately 2 billion kilos of food is wasted every year. This happens throughout the food chain: from farm to fork. Asparagus grower Eric Weiland knows all about that. There have been years when Weiland had to throw away a few hundred kilos of asparagus a week.
That has everything to do with the crooked asparagus. During a wet and cold spring, the asparagus grows poorly, which increases the risk of crooked asparagus. Those crooked asparagus do not fit in the peeling machine and are therefore thrown away. “That’s a shame,” says Weiland. “It happens with potatoes, cauliflower, cucumbers and therefore also with us with asparagus. You can of course use the asparagus for soup, but you can’t prepare 500 liters of soup a week either, because there is no demand for that either.”
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