Can you eat ornamental chillies?

Question: Can you eat ornamental chillies that are usually sold in flower shops, garden centres and DIY stores?

Answer: Basically, you have to remember that while there are thousands of varieties of chillies, but no ornamental chillies. All chili types are edible!

Chili plants, most with beautiful colourful chili peppers, are often used for decorational purposes. These plants grown by large farms are heavily sprayed and treated with chemicals to make them look beautiful for longer. Alone for this reason, you should not eat "ornamental chilies". A further reason for the misleading title is the legal situation. Garden centres and DIY stores don`t want to sell food, as they would be liable for it. Normal chili plants with a few pods would be, strictly speaking, foods that require authorisation within the EU. Through use of the term "ornamental chillies", the law is circumvented. In our eyes that is not a problem, however a warning on each plant stating that it is "not suitable for consumption - treated with pesticides" would be very sensible.

Our recommendation: Don`t eat ornamental chillies!

If you have grown your own ornamental chillies without pesticides, then you can eat the pods of course. You`ll find a wide range of beautiful ornamental chili seeds in out shop.