I think the recent popularity of roasting/peeling the sweeter yellow, red and orange varieties may influence the price of these colors. The demand is greater lately. I know I like the sweeter ones, blackened on top of the stove, peeled, cut into strips, and tossed with olive oil, lemon and salt. The Mediterranean diet, don’t you know.
As I mentioned above, some varieties do turn purple – a very dark, eggplanty purple – when ripe. I’m guessing you had one of those, and it rotted because you left it on the plant after it was ripe.
Continuing the hijack, pīmon refers specifically to green peppers (red and yellow are identified as aka pīmon and kīro pīmon). Using the term as an insult would be thought pretty old-fashioned, nowadays.
I figured a real Japan based Doper would be along to enlighten me on that. I learned that factoid in my Japanese class and thought it was neat but always wondered how common it was.
I think we’re confusing ripe, mature, ready-to-harvest green bell peppers with overripe peppers.
A true green bell pepper is green when it’s mature and ready to pick. If you cut it open, you’ll see the seeds are fully developed.
A red bell pepper isn’t an overripe green bell pepper, and the orange and yellow varieties are also not green bell peppers in various stages of ripeness.
A banana pepper, or Hungarian Wax pepper is normally yellow when ripe, but will turn red if left on the plant long enough, also. That doesn’t mean a yellow Hungarian Wax pepper turns into a red Tabasco pepper if left on the plant long enough. A Hungarian Wax goes from green to yellow (when ripe) to red (when overripe, and verging on rot). A Tabasco goes from green, when immature, to red when ripe.
Curiously enough, around my area, red, yellow & orange bell peppers have, over the last year or so at least, been less expensive than green bell peppers, and I’m curious as to why. I actually prefer the nice pepperiness of the traditional green.
As someone who has been in the produce business all there life, there’s a few things you have to look at before you can compare prices. First of all, are they the same size. We get people in our store complaining that are X are $1.00 more then the X at the store down the road. Of course, to that person an X is an X, but to us the store up the road might be selling a smaller X then we are. Second, where are they from. Right now at our store, we have cheap green peppers that were grown locally, and we have expensive red and yellow peppers that were grown hydroponically in Holland. Talk to the produce manager and ask why the price is so different, chances are they’ll tell you why.
I just looked at the website, and judging by the prices it’s probably what I mentioned. They probably get their red and yellow peppers from Holland and the green peppers from nearby whatever location you’re at.
According to the Whole Foods website, green and red peepers do indeed come from the same plant, as most people have been suggesting. But this website also says:
Bolding mine.
Regarding pricing, this website says:
Here is a link to a page in the Burpee seed catalog showing the California Wonder variety of bell pepper. It clearly shows the same variety of pepper at two different stages of ripeness: green and red. This is an heirloom variety that used to be one of the most common bell peppers grown.
Here is the Chinese Giant bell pepper, another heirloom variety. Again, the picture shows peppers at different stages of ripeness.
One possible reason that ripe peppers cost more than unripe ones is that it takes more time to grow a ripe pepper. If it takes twenty days longer to grow a ripe pepper, that’s twenty days the farmer can’t grow anything else in that field.
Sez you, turnip. 
This is all very interesting. Could someone offer an explanation for why I get violently ill when I eat green peppers, but have no reaction to red peppers? It never made sense to me before, and now that I know that they are the same thing, I’m even more curious.
Because they’re not ripe? Other unripe fruits and veggies can cause distress.
I’m really tempted to start a new thread rather than hijack this one, but… here we are. I’ve always heard advice like the above, or “talk to the fish monger” or “talk to the meats manager.” Do these people really exist in typical, modern, mega grocery stores? I mean normal places like Kroger or Piggly-Wiggley or Albertsons or Jewel or whatever-the-big-chain-in-you-area-is. Are there actually such specialists as these in each location that know all of these details? I’d always imagined a computer did all the thinking these days, and low-paid, unskilled employees just followed orders. And then maybe there’s a regional produce guy the inspects the wholesalers or visits the stores from time to time.
I bring this up, because I’d always assumed that there wasn’t truly anyone knowledgable to talk to. Hell, sometimes I like to go to the slightly more expensive, fancy place (Nino Salvaggio’s where I’m at [when home]) because the quality is always impeccable and they do have smart people there – kind of like buying your home improvement stuff at K Mart vs. Lowes.
So what’s the scoop? Can ask a real, live human being to stock serrano chiles, custom slice my ribeyes, and procure me a couple of good sized, whole red snappers?
The trick is, what color is a particular bell pepper supposed to be when it ripens at around 65-75 days?
Green bell peppers are green when ripe at about 75 days. If you leave them on the plant another 20 days or so, they can turn red. It’s still a green bell pepper, even though it’s now red.
A red bell pepper is a variety designed to ripen to a nice red color at 65-75 days.
Same with your yellow, orange, pink, purple, etc. What color are they supposed to be when ripe?
If you look at Stokes Seeds, in their sweet bell section, you’ll see most of the varieties are green when ripe, then turn red if left longer. Some are “red” varieties designed to be red much earlier.
If you look at their sweet bell colors section, you’ll see varieties designed specifically to be a certain color when ripe, at around 70 days.
If your grocer is charging more for red bell peppers, it could be because they take longer before harvest, but he could also be selling you a red variety at a “fancy” price.
Even even they don’t have a 'high end grocery" or “mom and pop” style department managers that truly are “in the know.” But there should be someone that decides what to buy and how much they need, and what the price is going to be set at. Being in the produce business and doing business with wholesalers that also sell to large chains, I can tell you that even if some computer at a corporate office 2000 miles away makes buying decesions for canned goods and diapers, the produce is usually bought locally (note, not grown locally, bought locally). Either way, I would just go in and ask for a produce manager and see where that get’s you.
I work for a family owned grocery store with over 100 locations in several states. Very similar to a Kroger or Albertson’s, I suspect. Our produce manager can tell you an awful lot about every product he stocks, from the name and location of the grower, to what to look for in ripe produce, and more. He’ll know what day the growing season in California ends and if you can expect a week’s delay in fresh blueberries while they’re on their way here from Chile, or whatever other trivia you’re looking for. While most decisions about what produce to carry are made for him at the corporate level, he’s very well informed. Our fishmonger, however… I wouldn’t talk to her if I could avoid it.
The use of the term “ripe” in this context is meaningless. If I was growing Red Delicious apples, but I liked to eat them green, I could say “Red Delicious apples are ripe when they turn green. If you leave them on the tree another 2 weeks they will turn red, but since I like them green, I call them ripe earlier.”
I would need some actual cite if you are going to claim that green bell peppers and red bell peppers are both pickable at the same time, as mhendo lists cites stating the green are ready much earlier.
I have a very good idea why some seed companies sell “Green Pepper” seeds. It’s because marketters got wise, when they found people didn’t realize that red pepper seeds grow green peppers. I know because about 20 years ago my roommate looked all over for green pepper seeds and none were to be found. The seed guy laughed when we finally asked. So I am not suprised that they now sell seeds for a specific green hybrid that possibly is no good if you let it ripen further.
As to the OP “Why are green peppers cheaper?” the debate has gotten off track. The answer seems obviously to be “It takes less time for a pepper plant to grow a green pepper, and green peppers are more shippable.” Whether or not the specific variety of green pepper is hybridized to be an optimum green pepper or is able to continue to ripen into a Yellow/red pepper is beside the point. All peppers have to turn green first, so it stands to logic (and with mhendo’s cite to back it up) that green is faster.
And simple experience in the grocery store should let us all agree that green peppers are harder (thus easier to ship without damage) than red/yellow peppers.