Made in Italy pepper: ‘Prince of Italian biodiversity’

Rome: Angello Solarelli is the first snack and seedless sweet pepper on the Italian market. Particularly tasty and delicate, it is suitable for fast, fresh consumption at different times of the day. Ready for salads, aperitifs, and cocktails, it is a healthy and good-looking product.

Pepper is one of the most popular vegetables in Europe and is placed in consumption immediately after tomatoes and onions and on average reaches 2 kg per capita for year (source cbi.eu). This vegetable, like tomato and aubergine, belongs to the Solanaceae family, has many nutritional characteristics.

“Angello Solarelli”, declares Gianluca Casadio, Marketing Manager of Apofruit, “in this perspective, saw an excellent response from consumers in the first year of the campaign. People like it because it’s small, sweet, and seedless. The Apofruit Group, which holds the exclusive right for marketing, produces it from the Sicilian partners and will certainly increase its surfaces in the next years.”

The Italian production of peppers is progressively growing and overall reaches about 10,000 tons per year. In Europe the trend is constantly growing in terms of overall production which is concentrated in Belgium, Spain, and Italy, followed by Poland and the Netherlands.

There are 1700 varieties of peppers registered in Italy and at least 30 more are added every year which replace those no longer appreciated. Also, Italy grows at least 15 native species including the Senise Peppers PGI of Basilicata region, which are used to obtain the traditional crusco pepper through drying, the Carmagnola PGI, a pepper famous for its elongated shape, and the Potencorvo PDO pepper and numerous varietal types with wide differentiation of shape and flavor for all tastes.