Cabbage bouquets are Britain’s hottest new flower trend

22-10-2012 — /europawire.eu/ — Shoppers are going blooming mad for cabbages – to give as bouquets!

As well as picking up a cabbage in the veg aisle shoppers are now able to buy a brassica bouquet from the flower area.

Brassica is a family of plants which includes cabbages, cauliflowers, broccoli and Brussels sprouts but which also look attractive in bloom.

Tesco began trialling brassica bouquets in a handful of supermarkets a few years ago but now sells them in its UK stores.

During the summer one of the supermarket’s most popular seasonal bouquets was mixed lilies and sunflowers.  After switching the sunflowers for brassica, sales rocketed by nearly 150 per cent.

Tesco flower buyer Hazel Alexander said: “Brassica bouquets are the biggest new trend in cut flowers right now.

“Not only are they loved by shoppers but they are also creating an extra income for the UK’s brassica growers who have now found a new market for their produce.”

Brassica bouquets are seasonal lines that are only sold in the autumn, during the UK brassica season. They are an ornamental variety that is not edible.

Tesco sells two brassica bouquets – one with lilies and the other with chrysanthemums.  Both cost £5.

It’s not only in horticulture that cabbages have become trendy. In the last three months UK shoppers have bought four million more cabbages than they did in the same three months last year (Kantar data).

Thanks to endorsement from celebrity chefs such as Gordon Ramsay and Nigella Lawson cabbages have reached their highest sales in living memory with more varieties on sale than ever before.

Tesco now stocks eight different varieties of cabbage.

ENDS