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The Red Devils eat locally sourced bread and veggies from Ypres
29/06
Hendrik Durnez and Dries Delanote are proud of their contribution to the Red Devils © TOGH - Seen in the Krant van West Vlaanderen
The Red Devils are giving it everything they have in the run-up to the European Championship. Not only does this mean hours and hours of training; it also means sticking to a healthy, well-balanced diet. Some of the dishes they are served are made from ingredients sourced locally, in Ypres. Dries Delanote of Le Monde des Mille Couleurs in Dikkebus supplies the team with vegetables, herbs and juices, while Hendrik Durnez of organic bakery De Trog, located in the Ypres industrial zone, bakes their bread. Apart from having their roots in Ypres, there is one more thing these two gentlemen share: respect for people and nature.
Bartel Dewulf is the chef who prepares the meals for the Red Devils, for which he painstakingly sources the best products in all of Belgium, including the Westhoek region. Accompanied by the national team’s coach, Roberto Martinez, he recently paid a visit to Le Monde des Mille Couleurs, the organic farm that Dries Delanote (46) runs in Dikkebus. ‘Coach Martinez thought it was important to experience a connection with the farm that supplies their vegetables,’ explains Dries. ‘It was a wonderful meeting. He is a true coach. He was very calm and has the same respect for living plants that I, as a farmer, have. You can tell that this is a coach that delves more deeply into things. Not only does he work with his brain; he uses his entire body. I felt a strong connection with him. He gets it. Martinez went into the garden and walked among the plants. He is man who goes in search of a deeper level of energy.’
Dries started fifteen years ago as a small-scale wild farmer. Today, he supplies numerous restaurants with his products. ‘The last decade has seen a growing awareness with regard to food in the hospitality and catering industry. These days, this is also being extended to catering for athletes. Consumers can choose from a tremendous array of products at supermarkets, but it’s a bit of a labyrinth. We offer only the purest produce. That’s why chefs like to collaborate with us. It’s all about customisation, keeping the chain short. We may only offer our customers vegetables, herbs and edible flowers, but the diversity of products we offer within this range is enormous.
❝ It’s great that the Red Devils are becoming more food-conscious. An enormous shift has taken place. Usually, they would get their food from whoever wants to sponsor them, but now they've consciously gone in search of the purest vegetables with the highest vitamin content.’
Vitamins
Not only does Dries supply the team with vegetables; they also source their herbs and juices from him. ‘We started making juices during the crisis period in collaboration with Lombarts Calville from heirloom apple varieties that we grow in an orchard on a hill called the Kemmelberg,’ continues Dries. ‘Still, vegetables comprise the biggest part of the order. The most important aspect of this is the vitamin content. That is the biggest difference between supplying to a football team versus the catering industry, which we often provide with a very special and refined range of edible plants.’
Of course, I will never go so far as to consider myself a member of the Red Devils team.
Organic bakery De Trog also received a visit from the Red Devils’ catering company. ‘Actually, it all started with a study that was carried out on a certain type of grain, called tritordeum’, recounts founder Hendrik Durnez (55). ‘It’s a hybrid variety that originated by cross-breeding wild barley with oat, and it's exceptionally sustainable because it can withstand drought very easily. So, we started baking bread with tritordeum, and the catering company expressed an interest in it. They told us that they wanted sustainability to be a key factor in the meals they serve.’
No manipulation
‘What’s unique about our bread is that we bake it exactly as it was made 100 years ago’ explains Hendrik. ‘There is no trace of manipulation; neither in the cultivation of the grain we use or anywhere in our bakery. The processing time for our bread ranges from 8 to 12 hours. Studies have shown that if you allow bread to rise as long as we do, the mineral substances it contains can be absorbed into the body much better and more easily. If you were to look at it from that perspective, you could even say that our bread improves performance.’
Hendrik represents the third generation in a family of bakers. ‘My grandfather ran a bakery in Geluwe, which was founded in 1911. My parents took it over, but my father died young. He was only 43 when he died; I was barely 10. Thanks to some incredibly loyal employees, my mother was able to expand the bakery. It was during this period that respect for people became ingrained into our philosophy’, recounts Hendrik, who moved to the Ypres industrial zone with De Trog in 2004. ‘We currently employ a workforce of 130. But the best way to gauge our success is to check if our staff numbers are growing proportionally to our sales figures. Nothing is manipulated and a lot of manual labour is needed. Everyone on our work floor is a qualified baker; even the employees in the packaging division.’
Back to nature
Respect for people and nature are also key values to Dries Delanote. ‘When you, as a farmer, open your door to nature you will never want to turn back again’, explains Dries. ‘Instead of being the executive manager of production, you are only a small part of the whole. We are product-oriented people in a product-oriented society. This can partly be attributed to the economy, which has certainly brought us prosperity. However, it is my firm belief that we need to return to nature, using this position of prosperity as a starting point.’
It goes without saying that both Dries and Hendrik will be rooting for the Red Devils with all they have next week and beyond. ‘Of course, knowing that the Red Devils appreciate our product is an acknowledgement of our abilities, but we actually derive just as much satisfaction from the ordinary consumer who eats our bread and enjoys it’, says Hendrik. ‘In the end, that’s what we derive our motivation from every day, letting people enjoy the product of our craftsmanship. Nevertheless, we can be very proud that top athletes also appreciate our craft.’
Dries Delanote adds: 'Like many Flemings I have enjoyed watching the Euros since I was a boy. But, as the son of a farmer, I hardly had any time to go and play football. The European Championship unites us, and we take pride in this. I will never go so far as to consider myself a member of the Red Devils team. We have to stay humble. But I am still immensely proud that I can be a small link in this chain.’
Read the article online: https://kw.be/nieuws/economie/... Article published in the Krant van West Vlaanderen, Tom Gheeraert, 29/06/2021