Traditionally 4 Evergreen again supplied the first peppers of the new year on 4 January. The company of the family Grootscholte grows peppers in various locations in the Netherlands. The nurseries are run by the brothers Robert, Dennis, Richard and Jim Grootscholte; father Wim has a more advisory role. Wim is also active in the management of Stichting Stap. Therefore it is now time to look ahead with the Grootscholte grand old man at the pepper season. 
"I am a little optimistic about it, but this is going to be the year of truth. If this year is not going to be better, then there will be companies, which will not be able to survive" Wim starts off. "The pepper area has decreased by about 70 to 80 HA and if all of us pick 1kg less per m2, then supply will be a lot less than last year. This is the expectation as last year was an extremely good production year. And we all know that a box costs too much money and that a box brings in too little money."
"The price of green peppers started reasonably a few weeks ago, but in the meantime the supply of Spanish peppers is a lot bigger and the green Spanish peppers cost about 1.20 Euro" Grootscholte says. "The green peppers are grown almost year round; the red, yellow and orange peppers will be produced with effect from March."
"Luckily there are nice initiatives in order to arrive at bundling of supply. Also with Stichting STAP we have, I think, woken up the growers with our story about the image of our product abroad. As the management we put the framework together. Now all of us should start working hard with this" the pepper grower concludes.