Editor's Note:  Our company, Sunbelt Shows, Inc. is joining forces with Bel Soley, Inc. to assist in rebuilding the Haitian economy.  I am urging my readers to contact Brian and render any assistance to this project that you can.

Brian Hays writes: I am the Chairman of Bel Soley, which is a company dedicated to development in Haiti by building for-profit enterprises for the sale of agricultural products domestically and for export. See www.belsoley.com. We have a U.S. distribution company based in Boston and a Haitian subsidiary that operates primarily in the southern part of the country (Les Cayes), with a country manager located in Port au Prince. [He and his family are OK.] We grow some of our own crops and buy other crops from small farmers. We started exporting mangos, breadfruit and hot peppers last year and were just ramping up our pepper exports when the earthquake hit. We are producing several thousand pounds of peppers a week now. Our hot peppers are habaneros from imported seed and the local hot pepper, a habanero variety called 'Piment Bouk'. Our target was to get to ship out 24,000 pounds per month by the end of the year. As you can imagine, all exports from the country have stopped for now. Port au Prince is the only real port of debarkation in Haiti. With the government destroyed and transportation over-burdened, we do not know when we can begin shipping again - although we are optimistic.
We are selling our crops locally, but the current regional market is questionable and we don't know if the market can absorb the volume. Domestic distribution beyond the immediate locale is doubtful. Furthermore, our business model is based on export income. So you can see the problem.

It has always been part of our business plan to make a good quality and truly uniquely Haitian pepper sauce.  All the pepper sauce sold in Haiti now is either Tabasco or Louisiana Hot Sauce. We know there is a good domestic market and with something different and of good quality, there should be an export market as well. But our plan was to move into pepper sauce later this year, after our fresh pepper export business was better established. Because of the earthquake, we would like to accelerate our move into the sauce business. By making sauce or mash from the peppers, we will be able to save our crops and also begin to provide edible foodstuffs to the domestic market, which is already showing signs of food shortages. As I mentioned, mangos, papayas, bananas and pineapples are readily available as a base and we can easily grow carrots. We have or can grow a range of more exotic tropical fruits as well, including passion fruit, soursop, sapote, acerola (Barbados Cherry), tamarind and more as flavorings.

Depending on the cost, we believe that we have adequate capital to set up the hot sauce operation, including bottling.We think we have found away to import equipment into the country (by by-passing Port au Prince). What we we don't have is information and expertise. Starting a business is difficult in the best of circumstances (I know, have started quite a few), but in this chaotic environment where we know next to nothing about the new business, the only way we can off-set the risk is with good advice and good partners.

* We need recommendations of experts in the business that can advise us on the sauce making process, the bottling process and any other practical, basic opertaions;
* We need recommendations of experts in food safety (we intend to meet all HACCP requirements - not only to allay fears about products from Haiti, but because it is the right way to do things);
* We need recommendations of reliable, honest equipment vendors who will provide the right equipment - not too much or too little - and collateral expertise in setting up and operations.
* We need recommendations of US (or EU) importers of pepper sauce (and fresh peppers too, since we will be back in that business).
* Any other ideas, suggestions or sources of information would be also be greatly appreciated.

Thanks again for your time and willingness to help. We hope to turn a bad situation into something good. If we can get this done, we will have a few new, exotic pepper sauces from the fiery country of Haiti!

Brian

Brian J. Hays
Chairman, Bel Soley, Inc
703-421-9211 - home office
703-217-6251 - mobile

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Sonoma Organics, a division of Seco Spice Ltd. of  Berino, New Mexico, has announced the release of a new product to stabilize the heat levels of fiery foods products.  Until now, manufacturers have had to depend on imported, oil-based oleoresins, notes chemist Marlin Bensinger, who invented the process for making a water soluble chile extract.  The advantage of HydroCap^™ is that it does not separate in water-based products such as salsas and hot sauces and does not change the flavor of the product.  Bensinger added that HydroCap^™ is not designed to make superhot sauces but rather to be added to products of any heat level to increase or stabilize their heat levels as measured by the industry standard, Scoville Heat Units.  HydroCap^™ is organic and kosher and is available in varying heat levels but most commonly 10,000 and 50,000 SHU with 100,000 SHU coming in the future.  For more information on HydroCap^™, send an email here.

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For quite a while I've wanted to offer manufacturers of spicy and BBQ products a way to test to see if their new products can compete successfully in the Scovie Awards and in the marketplace, but I didn't really have the time to devote to the project.  To the rescue comes James Beck of Houston, who has launched a site devoted to that very subject.  James, a hard-working young entrepreneur who was formerly a business and financial consultant, has decided to focus his life on the fiery foods and barbecue industries--sounds like me 25 years ago!  So we have teamed up for New Product Reviews, a for-now free service that judges the latest products according to the same criteria as the Scovie Awards, and James will publish the results on his EatMoreEat.com site. Welcome aboard, James!

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Holy Jolokia!  That's the name of the hot sauce the Chile Pepper Institute is releasing as a fund-raiser.  The Institute has partnered with CaJohn's Fiery Foods in Columbus, Ohio to produce the sauce, which is made with the world's hottest pepper, the 'Bhut Jolokia', or "ghost pepper."   This partnership marks the first time CPI has partnered with a private company, and Dr. Paul Bosland, director, said the new product will help cement New Mexico as the chile capital of the world.  The 5-ounce bottle of Holy Jolokia will retail for $10 and a portion of sales will help fund research and education at CPI.  After years of growing out strains of 'Bhut Jolokia', tests with High Performance Liquid Chromatography revealed the heat level to be in excess of one million Scoville Heat Units. The Institute's findings for 'Bhut Jolokia' were awarded the world record as the "hottest of all spices" by Guinness World Records in September, 2006.  For more information on Holy Jolokia, email the Institute here.  For detailed information on 'Bhut Jolokia', go here.

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More than 16,000 buyers jammed San Francisco's Moscone Center in mid-January to taste new food products from all over the U.S. and three dozen nations around the world at the Fancy Food Show.  "Despite near-historic economic challenges, our industry is showing resilience," noted Ann Daw, president of the National Association for the Specialty Food Trade, the show's owner. "Consumers are eating at home more, and they are purchasing specialty items to liven up their meals."
The sold-out National Fiery Foods & Barbecue Show supports Daw's theory and from my observations, business is still strong in our sector. Harald Zoschke, owner of Germany's largest online hot shop, Pepperworld.com, agrees, and notes: "January 2009 orders are up 50% from 2008 at the Pepperworld Hot Shop."
One of the more interesting displays at the Fancy Food Show continued the competition of who has the hottest hot sauce.  Dave's Gourmet introduced "Ghost Pepper" Jolokia Private Reserve, which Dave Hirschkop is calling the

 

 

world's hottest sauce. It's hand signed by Dave, numbered, vintage dated, and laid to rest in a wooden coffin wrapped in caution tape. A 5-ounce bottles are available for $35 each.

 

Blair Lazar, of Blair's Sauces and Snacks, begs to differ and points out that he was first with a Jolokia Pure Death Sauce. The battle rages on.

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 A New York City artist has come up with a great way to insult the disgraced Wall Street financier Bernard Madoff: a bottle of hot habanero sauce called "Bernie in Hell." Alex Gardega said he wanted to make a statement about Madoff, who is accused of taking $50 billion from investors in his fund. Bottles of the sauce, available for sale at $10 each on Gardega's website, bear a photograph of the financier with horns on his head and dollar signs for eyes.  "This sauce is habanero-based and very good and hellishly hot!" Gardega wrote on his blog. He also wrote that the bottles had been produced as a limited-edition artwork rather than as a condiment.  More text on the bottle reads, "You can take the money but can you take...the heat?!!!"  Visit Gardega's blog here.

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Much of what we know about now-extinct brands of hot sauces comes from bottle collectors. There is not a great body of material on the subject of collectible hot sauce bottles, but we are indebted to Betty Zumwalt, author of Ketchup, Pickles, Sauces: 19th Century Food in Glass, who dutifully catalogued obscure hot sauce bottles found by collectors. Many bottles in the hands of collectors were uncovered from archaeological digs and shipwrecks.... Story continues here.

 

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Many years ago I wrote a novel that was never published called Sidewinders, and in it my hero, a journalist, uncovers a plot to smuggle cocaine into the U.S. in cans of Mexican food products like enchilada sauce.  Well, today in Durham, Ontario police arrested Mahendrapaul Doodnauth (how could I make that name up?) and charged him with smuggling 276 kilos of pure cocaine in 1,250 boxes of Sari hot sauce, which is made in Guyana.  Doodnauth is the owner of Caribbean International Food Distributors.  The cocaine was in plastic bags that were taped to the cardboard inserts that separated the bottles of hot sauce.  Once again, fiction becomes fact!

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We've been busy of late posting lots of interesting new articles on the SuperSite.  Check out:

• Kobe: Not Bryant, but the best beef you've never tasted, here.
• Tabasco: 135-year-old bottle uncovered, here.
• Chile Growing: Turn your basement in a pod-producing garden, here.
• Stovetop Smoking: Baby, it's cold outside, so smoke indoors, here.
• Tasty Travel: Singapore Sling, here.

 

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Attention Manufacturers. We are now giving you the opportunity to have your new products (less than one year old) tasted by our assistant editors using the Scovie Judging forms.  You will get a score for tasting and one for product packaging.  And the results will be published on this blog. There is no charge for this promotion, but you must sign a release giving us permission to publish the results of the taste test.  For more information, email me here.

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