Mrs. Van Lingen (age 80) walks with her daughter through the Goudgewas farm shop at Roodeschool. There are 4 red coals in her cart. It’s delicious, says Mrs. Van Lingen. “I bought 6 here at the end of September. I chop them finely, boil them, shake them a little, and when they’re cool, I put them in the freezer. When I feel like red cabbage, I take a portion out of the freezer and put it back in. I always add a little cinnamon and a splash of vinegar.”

She lives in Warfstermolen, about 50 kilometers from the Roodeschool. She knows Goudgewas through her son who works at Delfzijl and was happy with the shop. Goudgewas kale was splurged on by her daughter and she has been shopping there regularly ever since.

“Remove the outer paper anyway.”

Farmer Henk Landwer, 67, who also owns Goudgewas Farm Shop, is just as enthusiastic as customers about red cabbage. He harvested only a small part of one and a half hectares of red and white cabbage at Tilweg in Roodeschool. The ground is very wet.

He says what he harvested is good coal. “Because of the massive drought, there is a small growth on the outer leaf, but you can remove it anyway. Look, here’s a cabbage cut in half. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“The crack will rot”

Richard Kreuger of Tuindersbelang thinks otherwise. As an intermediary between the farmer and the merchant, he checks the crops. Last week he took a look at the Landwehr and red and white cabbage were unacceptable, he thought. “I am disappointed. If you pull the leaf out of the cabbage, you will find a crack on the third or fourth leaf and that crack will rot.”

Kruger says he still wants to look at it, but he thinks cabbage from Roodeschool is not suitable for his usual route: to wholesalers across Europe and occasionally to Israel and Dubai.

Buy red cabbage from Roodeschool for the food bank

Landwehr says he’s resigned to Kroger’s statement that he doesn’t buy any coal from him. “I am an entrepreneur and I start from the positive. I sell my cabbage here in Goudgewas for €1 each. I don’t want to think of wasting them, it’s a waste of good quality and our investment.”

He says he works with the food bank and has put up a slogan. , “Give and Eat: Buy Red Cabbage at Roodeschool.” You can buy red cabbage as a donation of money, right? ”

Once before he had to destroy a shipment of vegetables, but he thinks that’s a scenario he doesn’t want to think about at the moment.

Pyt Sipma was left with 100,000 kilograms of carrots

Farmer Pete Sippma (49) from Frisian Engwierum witnessed this scenario last year. The usual German juice producer suddenly stopped buying organic carrots, leaving him with 100,000 kilos of carrots. He says there will be another lawsuit.

After much deliberation, he decides to sell as many carrots as possible to nearby customers. In this way we still sell 20,000 kilos of carrots: 5 kilos for 5 euros. The rest went to the animal feed industry.”

Sipma stopped growing carrots and switched to wheat. According to him, the rules are still going in the wrong direction. “If I had 1,500 kilograms of carrots, I would sell 500 kilograms of them to the consumer, and the rest were too thick, too twisted, too small or too long and ended up in animal feed. We shouldn’t want that waste, right? Consumer He doesn’t care what a carrot looks like as long as it tastes good.”