The pepper season is coming to an end. BelOrta expects to still have some supply for a number of weeks. "Three weeks at most and then it will all be over," says Vuerinckx, pepper specialist of the auction. He says it is striking that the pepper has done much better this October than in previous years.
Considerable level
He indicates that Spain was on the market a few weeks later this autumn, due to technical cultivation problems. "Our growers profited from this. In previous years there was almost always a weak price formation in October and now they have remained at a considerable level. The red ones for instance are being sold for around 1.80 Euro at the moment. That's a tidy price."
Sorely needed
Looking back at the season Bruna notices that there were mainly very high prices at the start. "There was also less supply then and this coincided with promotional deals in Germany. This pushed the price up. We aren't celebrating yet, but it hasn't been a bad season for peppers. A good season was sorely needed. Recent years have regularly been tear inducing." The pointed pepper also did well. "The market for this variety is more stable than the regular pepper. The price didn't sink this season, a phenomenon seen in other seasons with supply peaks."
So far BelOrta has sold around 16,000,000 kg of peppers, of which 8,000,000 kg red. This number means that the pepper is in BelOrta's top five vegetables.