Peppers don’t quite give you as many options as, say, garlic,
but here are a few ways you might not have considered for peppers to bring
something new to your market table, and your wholesale customers.
1. Sell pepper
plants
Almost invariably, because I love to grow peppers, I start more
plants than I need. But this works out well because selling starts is
relatively easy so long as the plants look healthy and are in a nice package.
Plants not only make a good addition to the early season market table, but they
are a good way to start engaging the first customers of the year and getting
them interested in your goods.
2. Grow ornamental
peppers
If you really enjoy selling plants, you could consider growing some
decorative, ornamental pepper plants. These are multi-coloured peppers whose
plants can be sold young with the promise of ornamental peppers in the summer
or grown out and sold as fully fruiting plants. Trucking plants back and forth
to market in the middle of the summer can be an ordeal, so start getting people
excited about them early—try to get customers to place orders if possible. This
will avoid too much back and forth with the plants, which is good for neither
plant nor farmer.
3. Grow green as well as red
I have recently seen the value in setting a specific section of bell
peppers aside for strict use as green peppers. Green bells are just under ripe
red peppers (generally speaking), and you won’t want to take green peppers off
plants designated as red peppers for obvious reasons (yield). Setting aside a
specific section solely for green peppers will give you plenty of both.
4. Also grow other
colours
And of course, the many shapes, colours, and sizes of peppers are
nice to have to keep things interesting with your restaurants and you market
customers. There are small, “lunchbox” or “snack” peppers you can sell in pint
containers. And there are large purple, yellow, white, orange and black peppers
(and probably some other colours) to liven up the table.
5. Give samples to
chefs
If you do the above and grow all of these peppers, market them to
chefs directly by providing regular samples. If they find one they love, they
may buy all you have. Get restaurants engaged like this and they might ask for
a section to be set aside specifically for them of a specific pepper.
6. Have tastings at your table
My state of Kentucky requires a specific license to do taste tests
for the public, but it is not hard to get and it is worth looking into your
local regulations. Any time, customers can taste something before buying, it
increases the likelihood they’ll buy that product and perhaps come back
throughout the year for other purchases.
7. Create value-added
products
If you find yourself with an abundance of peppers and need a way to
preserve them, consider turning them into a value added product such as roasted
red peppers preserved in oil or red pepper jelly. For selling, you need to
process your peppers in a commercial kitchen (or under the guidelines of your
state). But if you have a favourite pepper recipe, consider finding a way to
commercialize it. Sweet pepper soup, sweet pepper salsa: Make those peppers
work for you.
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