Morocco increases its exports of sweet peppers to all important destinations, including Germany, reports EastFruit. For several seasons in a row, Morocco has been increasing sweet pepper exports to Germany by 10-20% annually. In the MY 2022/23 (July-June), a record volume of Moroccan bell peppers – 18,200 tons – reached the markets of Germany. Furthermore, the export revenue amounted to almost 30 million dollars, which was the highest indicator in the last seven seasons.
“Morocco was actually the only major exporter of sweet peppers that managed to increase exports to Germany last season. At the same time, other countries, due to various problems, on the contrary, reduced supplies to the German market”, says Yevhen Kuzin, Fruit & Vegetable Market Analyst at EastFruit.
It should be noted that Germany is one of the promising destinations for Morocco’s exports. The country is the leading importer of sweet peppers in Europe, and in the world ranking, Germany has confidently ranked second since 2017, giving up the first place only to the USA.
More than half of all supplies of sweet peppers come to the country from Spain, and almost a quarter of the total volume is imported from the Netherlands. In total, in the 2022/23 season, Germany imported this vegetable from 37 countries, including 4% of all imports accounted for supplies from Morocco.
At the same time that Germany continues to occupy leading positions among importers, imports of sweet peppers to the country have decreased slightly over the past couple of years. They “sagged” due to a decrease in supplies from two key directions – Spain and the Netherlands. As EastFruit has repeatedly written, some European countries faced severe droughts in 2021-2022, and affected Spain was forced to reduce exports.
“Food inflation in the EU also contributed, as well as rising energy prices, which reached record levels last winter. As a result, consumers had to save on vegetables that are not essential even in Germany, not to mention other countries. For example, in neighboring Poland, wholesale prices for sweet peppers in February 2022 were almost two and a half times as high as in the same period of the previous year,” emphasizes Yevhen Kuzin.
Morocco grows bell peppers throughout the year, so the vegetable is exported almost year-round. The product is more actively imported to the markets of Germany, as a rule, from October to May.
Read also: Morocco sextuples carrot exports to Spain, seizing an opportunity from European drought
Sweet pepper is an important export category for Morocco, second in revenue after tomatoes. The main buyers of the vegetable are European countries, and supplies of sweet peppers to European markets are growing annually. As a result, over six years Moroccan producers have managed to increase exports of this product by 46%. Thus, in the MY 2022/23 almost 170,000 tons of sweet peppers were imported to the markets of 48 countries, which brought Morocco more than 192 million dollars of export revenue.
In the list of world suppliers of vegetables, North African country ranks seventh, and Spain, France and Germany are among the top three importers of sweet peppers from Morocco.
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