Those hands belong to Rob (GM of CloverBUR, for some reason he doesn’t like getting his photo taken). The Brussels Sprout Sandwich is launching this Thursday (Wednesday if you have the Clover App 😉) Brussels season is always bittersweet, every day you have the sandwich, you know it’s leaving soon. Massachusetts is not a huge grower of brussels. Most of the brussels you’ll eat on Thanksgiving actually come from California.

Brussels like long, cool autumns. What they don’t like is hot weather (they turn bitter if subjected to heat for too long on the stalk.) As you’ve probably noticed, we’re experiencing a pretty warm autumn. So all the Brussels are coming ready right now, at the same time. We’re buying up as many Brussels as our farmers at the Pioneer Valley Grower’s Association can provide us. But even they can’t provide us with the volumes we’d like to keep you all satiated.

So what does Rob have to do with this? Rob manages our Clover Burlington location. He was at a coffeeshop in Lunenburg wearing a Clover hat, and a guy named Dylan came up and started talking to him. Dylan is a gleaner, which is an ancient word that means he helps find homes for food that would otherwise rot on the vine because of a lack of an outlet.

Dylan said he’s a huge fan of Clover, and they got talking about his favorite sandwich, the brussels sprout. He knew of a farm in Lunenberg that grows brussels. Fast forward a few days, and Chris, our VP of food, is meeting with the farmer at Dick’s Market Garden, finding out they had a supply of brussels without an outlet. BOOM. The farmer gets $$ for crops they worked hard to grow but had no outlet to sell, and we’ve got an extra field of brussels to get us through the Brussel Mania that is about to engulf us.

If you’re curious about gleaning, the organization that Dylan works with is The Boston Area Gleaner’s Association.