Snack peppers.
A pack concept before it is a crop.
A pack concept before it is a crop
Snack pepper is a market and pack idea more than a defined botanical type: small sweet peppers sold in mixed-colour punnets to be eaten whole. The concept overlaps pointed pepper genetics in some ranges and sits closer to a miniature block in others, and the product a buyer means by the word varies between retailers.
What the crop needs
Because the product is not settled, neither is the system or the cycle. Fruit size, shape, whether the fruit is seedless, the colour mix in the pack and the maturity at harvest all change the plant, the spacing and the picking labour. Each of those comes from the pack the retailer has agreed, not from the name on it.
What the greenhouse has to do
A snack pepper project is specified backwards from the punnet. Fruit shape and size, the colour mix, whether the fruit is seedless and the harvest maturity all come from the pack the retailer has agreed, and each of them moves the crop underneath it. Settle the pack and the growing plan follows; leave it open and the house is being sized for a product nobody has defined.
Once it is settled, the building work is pepper work. A long-cycle plant on a high wire, a climate held steady through the setting weeks, irrigation sized for the peak. What the format adds is handling: small fruit in mixed-colour punnets means high fruit counts, frequent picking and a pack area sized for sorting by colour rather than by weight.
DutchGreenhouses® specifies the structure, climate, screening and irrigation around the snack pepper crop, its pack format and the local climate, so the punnet the retailer agreed is the punnet the house fills. Get in touch to discuss a snack pepper project.
Other sweet pepper types and the systems behind them
Red pointed peppers
A conical sweet pepper with its own spacing and support.
Yellow pointed peppers
The yellow conical sweet pepper, usually packed beside the red.
Red bell peppers
The Dutch block-pepper baseline, carried to ripe colour.
Climate
Heating, cooling, humidity control and carbon dioxide dosing.
Snack pepper, asked and answered
What has to be settled before a snack pepper house can be sized?
The pack. Exact fruit shape and size, seedless status, the colour mix in the punnet, the pack format and the harvest maturity — each one changes the crop grown to fill it.
Is it the same as pointed pepper?
Sometimes it overlaps pointed genetics, sometimes it is closer to a miniature block. That is precisely why the pack specification comes before the greenhouse design.
What does the punnet format change in the house?
The handling. High fruit counts mean frequent picking, and a pack area sized for sorting by colour rather than by weight.
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