Maker · Vegetables
Beemster Garlic
Dutch garlic exists, and it grows on the clay of the Beemster Polder. The Kruiswijk family cultivates fresh bulbs with green stems and stores them so well that you can source from Holland from June through March. Milder than Mediterranean garlic, with an origin that fits on your map.
The story
Who's behind it
Beemster Garlic is the business of the Kruiswijk family on Rijperweg in the Beemster. They started in 1986 when milk quotas put pressure on dairy farming and opened space to try something new. That turned out to be garlic, a crop almost no one grew at scale in the Netherlands. They started small, with a handful of cloves in the backyard, and needed about fifteen years to harvest commercially good garlic under Dutch conditions. Today they plant millions of cloves per season, with their own self-built peeling machine and a GPS-guided planter that sets six rows in the ground at once.
What really makes it different
The subsoil is half the story. The heavy clay of the drained Beemster gives the bulbs a full but mild flavor, rounder than the sharp Mediterranean garlic most kitchens run on. Kruiswijk plants in November and harvests around June and July. On each plot, garlic doesn't return for at least seven years, keeping the soil clean and healthy. What really makes it special is the storage: by investing in cold technology, they stretched the sales season from six weeks to nine months. That's why Dutch garlic is available from June through March, coming out of cold storage in February looking like it was just harvested. The business is the first certified Dutch garlic grower under the SMK certification mark. Besides the dried bulb, they deliver the fresh bulb with green stem during season, plus purée and black garlic from their own harvest.
How you set yourself apart with this
Dutch garlic on your menu is a small statement that holds up. Where colleagues source anonymous bulbs from Spain or China, you can name a grower and point to a polder. Set out the fresh stem as a seasonal product in summer, a short window your guests won't find anywhere else. The mild flavor leaves more room in a dish: you can use it raw without it dominating. Outside season, you fall back on the purée and black garlic for your mise en place, with the same origin. One supplier, a clear story, and a product that literally comes from Dutch soil.
“Because we specialize in long-term storage, we can deliver Dutch garlic from June through March.”
Chef’s tip
Ask for the fresh bulb with green stem in season. It's still tender and you barely need to sauté it: grate it raw over a vitello, stir it into a beurre blanc at the last moment, or confit whole cloves in oil. The flavor stays round and won't turn bitter, as dried older garlic can.
How to use it
Ideas for your menu
Confit of whole cloves
Raw over beef carpaccio
Beurre blanc with garlic
Black garlic in a jus
For your menu
“Fresh garlic from the Beemster Polder, cultivated on clay by the Kruiswijk family”
Products from Beemster Garlic
What we carry from this maker
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Taste it in your own kitchen
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