Peppers: the trendy vegetable!
15 May 2024
We’re delighted to have a product that’s part of a positive long-term dynamic, and we’re rallying around the pepper that’s so popular with consumers!
The pepper market has been growing strongly for several years. It’s one of the few vegetables to be recruiting new consumers – what an opportunity!
As a shipper, we at Lagache are still very dependent on imports! 83% of the peppers we consume in France are imported! Only half come from Europe. Spain dominates with 50% of EU production, mainly in winter, followed by Belgium and the Netherlands with 15%, Poland with 12% and Italy and Greece with 8% and 5% respectively. France accounts for just 1% of European production. What a shame!
What can you do if you’re a pepper shipper, if you’re committed to virtuous agriculture, with a CSR approach that takes account of your carbon footprint, and if, of course, your ambition is to satisfy the end consumer?
I wanted to share with you today a solution that we are implementing at Lagache. We are located about ten kilometres from the Belgian border and 250 kilometres from Rotterdam.
We buy the vast majority of our peppers from Belgian cooperatives (via their dials or by contract) whose production calendar runs from mid-March to mid-October. Their growers use cutting-edge, environmentally-friendly growing practices. They supply us with products of the highest quality and consistency.
To be in line with our strategy, we give priority to local sourcing and environmental responsibility: we think it makes more sense to supply the northern half of France with Belgian or Dutch peppers that have travelled between 50 and 500 km, rather than sourcing them from southern Europe and making them travel 1,000 to 2,000 km to reach consumers.
But we don’t stop there. We also have strong partnerships with co-operatives and their producers: we take a co-construction approach and do everything we can to establish relationships between the producer, his co-operative, retailers and ourselves. Our mission: to discuss our objectives, to find a four-way agreement for the medium and long term, which binds us around 2 common objectives: to pay the producer well AND to satisfy the consumer.
Over and above the sense and interest of co-creating this relationship, it’s a win/win deal for everyone, including the consumer who, let’s never forget, is the judge of peace!
That’s how we want to help create value for the whole industry! The final touch, to make the story even better, would be to complete our range of peppers with the Hauts-de-France origin… We’re working on it 😉
Sources Eurostats production EU-27 2023
