Peppadews spice up company's exports

The company, which was the first operating tenant of the Coega industrial development zone, has gone from strength to strength since relocating from Deal Party.

Sweet baby peppers, widely known as peppadews, are believed to be a cross between cherry tomatoes and small red peppers.

They are believed to be the brainchild of an Eastern Cape farmer, Johan Steenkamp, who has now contracted farmers up north in Limpopo to grow them for him.

Dynamic Commodities sells under the brand name Peppaby.

Operations director Ray Holmes said that last year the company had come up with the idea of exporting sweet baby peppers to create employment opportunities for more people, over and above the 500 who were already employed at the processing factory.

“We saw this as an opportunity to create more labour. Sweet baby peppers is labour intensive. We have added 250 more people at the plant for the baby peppers. We wash the pepper, remove pips, package it and send it off to Stuttgart, Germany, from where it is distributed all over Europe.”

Holmes said the company would export a total of 350 tons of the baby pepper this year.

He said they guaranteed the Uitenhage-KwaNobuhle Farm a price up front. “I don't want to mention figures, but the fact that they are planting again this season speaks for itself.”

Dynamic Commodities also ships large consignments of sorbet in fruit-shell cups to the US, Canada, Korea, Holland, Denmark, Finland and the UK. It sources citrus fruits, pineapples, apples and coconuts from all over the Eastern Cape.

Source: The Herald

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