been the market leader on the Dutch pepper market for a number of years. What is unique is that the growers who supply to the sales organisation have some lit cultivation, so that the company, with the exception of a short period and December and January, can supply peppers all year round. "Red, green and yellow peppers, as well as Jalapeños, have lit cultivation. This means we can create added value," says Robbert van Essen, who is responsible for the pepper sales."Over the last few years the sales of peppers has gone quite well. Unfortunately this has meant that quite a few smaller growers have opted to join the pepper cultivation. Spain had a good pepper season this year and continued to supply for a long time, which meant they were in our way for a number of weeks. All of this resulted in a more difficult market this year. At the moment the kilo price of the red and green peppers is between 1 and 1.25 Euro and that's quite mediocre. The expectation is that the market will improve a little over the next few weeks," says Robbert.
Beside domestic cultivation in the Netherlands and Belgium, fixed partners in Israel and Spain supply imported peppers to Valstar Holland. "The quality is much better than that of the Moroccan peppers," says the seller. Valstar's main buyers of peppers are retail and wholesale in the United Kingdom, Scandinavia, Germany and the Netherlands. The first connections to the United States have already been made and it is our goal to continue to extend this export.
According to Robbert the pepper consumption is reasonably stable. "The peppers are mainly consumed by Asians. Last year we saw good sales in the special varieties such as the Jalapeño, Habanero and Naga Jolokia pepper, but this area has been extended and you notice there is too much pretty quickly."
