The bellpepper

Cultivation focused on the product

The sweet peppers as we know them are called bell peppers. We grow them in four different colours: red, yellow, green and orange.

All sweet peppers start off green. The colour they develop when they are ripe depends on the variety. A sweet pepper is ripe enough to be harvested after approximately 6 to 7 weeks.
If conditions are good, a sweet pepper plant can produce around 85 sweet peppers per growing season. This is equal to a total of approximately 50 million kilos a year that Hoogweg Paprikakwekerijen could produce under favourable conditions.

We take great care when growing our crops. We supply a sustainable product that has no, or very little, impact on the environment through maximising the use of biological crop protection.

The growing season

The growing season runs from March up to the end of October. We implement crop rotation following the last harvesting round: the old crop is cleared away to make room for new plants. These plants grow through the winter period. Once March arrives, we start harvest the sweet peppers again.

Tasks involving the crop’s production include ‘topping and training’ the plants. This involves removing the plant’s unwanted shoots and training the plant along a support that guides it upwards. The plants can grow up to approximately four metres tall.
In addition to ‘topping and training’, the sweet peppers are harvested in containers, which are subsequently sorted and packed so that they can be transported to the customer.

There are possibilities for grow lighting but it does not yet provide sufficient added value when growing sweet peppers.

Fresh product at the customer location

Hoogweg Paprikakwekerijen strives to supply the consumer with a product that is as fresh as possible.
We always supply a fresh product because it is grown, sorted, packed and then directly transported to the customer. The sweet peppers can be on the shelves the day after they are harvested.