BETTER HEALTH WITH SPROUTS

It’s Karen McGrath’s goal to spread the word on the benefits of eating sprouts.

Southern Alps Sprouts is the brainchild of husband-and-wife team Karen and Jason McGrath and has grown from a seedling cottage industry into a robust, thriving, and sustainable business that provides the majority of the South Island’s supermarkets with today’s superfood.

In 1998, armed with their respective talents (Jason, a mechanical engineer, and Karen with experience in agriculture and horticulture), the pair had started growing sprouts in their garage but didn’t know how to make it a business. Almost by fate, a mentor of theirs at the time had a friend based in Australia who was in the sprout industry. They travelled to meet him and he equipped the pair with the knowledge to grow.

Pooling their resources along with Jason’s hand-built contraptions combined with Karen’s horticultural knowledge led to establishing a sprout business at their Springfield property, with four daughters under four in tow.

The success of the business and ‘consistent quality and a good customer base’ meant that it soon outgrew its facility in Springfield, leading them to build a new purpose-built factory just west of Christchurch. This facility has 6.5km of solar on the roof, recycles water to put onto pasture, and the waste is used to fatten cattle.

Now nearly 25 years later, with their girls grown and a skilled team behind them, their passion for sprouts remains, largely thanks to the health benefits the little tendrils and shoots offer – an aspect Karen and her family are fierce advocates for.

“I do it for the health of people. I just love how good they are for you. You only need a few to get good nutritional value. They’re a living product and give you living energy.”

And she’s not wrong, with numerous studies pointing towards sprouted vegetables’ antiinflammatory and antioxidant properties. In some cases – like broccoli – they have around 100 times more beneficial nutrients than a mature plant. For broccoli sprouts, this is glucoraphanin which mixes with the naturally occurring enzyme in the body called myrosinase and produces the chemical sulforaphane. This chemical has been shown to have disease fighting properties.

Karen sees these sprouts – full of vitamins, minerals, fibre, Omega 3 and 6, with benefits for heart health and hormones – as essentials in our diets, especially with rising grocery bills.

“I wish more people knew how good they are for you and how economical they are. There are a lot of processed foods that offer nothing to you. Sprouts are as natural as can be. They’re a living product, and it costs very little for a punnet of sprouts and you get what you need to keep you going.”

Thanks to the McGrath’s passion for sprouts, they now distribute their range, which includes mung, alfalfa, onion, pea, radish, and broccoli, to the majority of the South Island’s supermarkets thanks to contracts with Foodstuffs and Progressive. They also supply wholesalers and My Food Bag.

All of their products go through rigorous testing under a custom control plan, from the seeds to the water to the batches, before arriving on shelves – and their packaging is recyclable.

Karen’s final advice is to reconsider snacking on junk food and replace that with nourishing sprouts.

“I just think it’s just the best form of a snack. I’ll grab some out of the fridge, pop them in my mouth, and have some good energy for the afternoon… I even have a friend who uses the ‘Crunchy Mix’ as popcorn!” southernalpsprouts.co.nz