A food truck, peppers in all shapes and colours and a reliable alarm clock. With those ingredients a motivated VLAM, BelOrta Auction and Cooperation Hoogstraten team announced the peak supply of Flandria peppers at the early markets in Lyon, Marseilles and Paris. "This action will familiarise French customers with the product and gives us detailed insight into the French pepper market," said Vanessa Ringler, business development manager for the French market at VLAM.
The well known Flandria boxes with peppers were in the spotlight at the early markets
Tasting with Flandria pepper at French early markets
The best way to be convinced of the taste and quality of a product is experiencing it. This is why VLAM organised a tasting tour of French early markets with the two pepper auctions BelOrta and Hoogstraten. Stéphane Fonlupt, a chef from the Lyon recipe was behind the grill, and had concocted three delicious recipes with grilled peppers for the occasion. He turned the classic peppers, mini peppers and sweet pointed peppers into simple but refined bursts of flavour.
The Belgian Promo team. Jan Engelen (Hoogstraten). Vanessa Ringler (VLAM Frankrijk) and Sofie Lambrecht (BelOrta).
The sweet pointed peppers is less known in France, but no less valued. The chef was immediately charmed by the mini peppers: "This is a very good product, which is versatile and combines well with both fish, meat and cheese due to its soft flavour." The Flandria food truck visited the early market at Marseille on June 22 and Lyon-Corbas on June 23. The snacks were to the taste of the visitors and wholesalers. On July 6 the third and final tasting will take place, in Rungis (near Paris). There Flandria Segways will circulate the various halls and the Flandria team will visit various wholesalers by cargo bike to show off the trendily prepared Flandria peppers. The action is surrounded by adverts for the Flandria peppers, new folders and a newsletter focusing on peppers. And of course both the food truck and the cargo bike will be Flandria style.
Chef Stéphane turns grilled Flandria peppers into flavour bombs.
Regional preferences
The goal on the one hand was to familiarise the French buyers and wholesalers with the range of the Flandria peppers and on the other to obtain a better insight into the market. "With the B2B actions we mainly want to appeal to the buyers. The tastings create a unique opportunity to get to know the wholesalers personally, and get a deeper insight into the market. We learned that the preferences in colour depend on the region. We are listening so that our Belgian exporters can offer their French customers the best possible commercial support," says Vanessa Ringler.
France: a growing market
The Flandria peppers are increasingly valued by the French. "Traders pick Flandria for its quality and also appreciate the uniformity of our 5kg boxes," clarifies Vanessa. "And this translates into a growing export of Belgian peppers to France, where we see an increase of around 30%: from around 7,000 tonnes in 2014 to almost 9,000 tonnes in 2015. Of course the fact that we are neighbours plays an important role: due to the daily supply the freshness and so also the top quality of the products can be guaranteed." Want to discover pepper based recipes?