A way of dealing with challenges to the pepper processing industry and pepper growers is to mechanize pepper processing, including the de-stemming of whole peppers. The present example provides a method for mechanically de-stemming whole peppers. The method provides for the recognition of a pepper's shoulder and or interior regions and stem in order to generate a control signal to initiate a process to de-stem the pepper. In particular, several implementations of the method are provided that may include a mechanical system, a laser system, a machine vision system, a combination of a machine vision system and the laser system, and other equivalent implementations. Additionally disclosed, are methods of processing whole peppers utilizing automated de-stemming.