I have just returned from a mind-boggling visit to Garden Fresh Gourmet's processing plants in Ferndale, Michigan. The image above is the programming screen for their ultra-high tech processor called HPP, or High Pressure Processing. In order to increase the shelf of their refrigerated fresh salsa and other deli delights, Jack Aronson installed this $3.5 million machine that kills every known bacterium, virus, protozoan, and mold, but not by heating. It's pressure that does it. A careful look at the screen will reveal that the pressure setpoint is 80,548 pounds per square inch, which is the approximate equivalent of being three miles under the sea. Unbelievably, the plastic packaging used withstands the pressure! This treatment extends the shelf life of their salsa to 70 days refrigerated, but Jack tells me that it's more like 100 days. 

About 12 years ago, Jack had a Mexican restaurant in Ferndale and he came as an attendee to the Fiery Foods & Barbecue Show and was inspired after tasting some fresh salsa. He started making fresh salsa and serving it to his customers and was soon supplying it to local supermarkets. Now Garden Fresh Gourmet is a $73 million dollar company and still growing at a furious pace. In fact, Jack has turned down acquisition offers from Nestle and Pepsico because he knows they would move his operation to other states and his 300 employees would be out of work. Jack still exhibits with us every year and enters the Scovie Awards. Garden Fresh has won more Scovies that any other company--a testament to high quality and hard work. For more information, go here.

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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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My friend Marco del Freo, who lives in northern Italy, is embarking on a fascinating adventure.  Marco, who owns vineyards, a winery, and olive trees, also grows chile peppers (peperoncini in Italy) and he is now making a habanero-infused extra-virgin olive oil by pressing the habaneros with the olives.  Since any olive oil that's infused with any other substance can't be legally called olive oil, he has decided to call it Habanero Nectar.  In anticipation of assisting him in importing it, I have formed a division of my company called Sunbelt Food Reps.  More on that soon, but here's the process.  At left are the olives in the background and the habaneros in the foreground.

 

They are mixed together (he uses both red habs and 'Fatalii') and ready for the pressing.

On a conveyor belt and headed toward the press.

The final result after pressing.  To be continued....

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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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Indian scientists will impregnate hand grenades with 'Bhut Jolokia' powder to immobilize but not kill people.  They say the devices will be used to control rioters and in counter-insurgency operations.  Scientists at India's Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) are quoted as saying the potent chilli will be used as a food additive for troops operating in cold conditions.  And the powder will also be spread on the fences around army barracks in the hope the strong smell will keep out animals.  Other forms of pepper spray are commonly used for crowd control in many parts of the world.

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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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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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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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Attention Manufacturers. I am helping a friend sell a Quick Label QLS-4100 Xe high- speed digital color label printer. Due to a change to a commercial label printing company, this machine has only been used twice. My friend paid $20,485 and he will sell it for half price, $10,242. Quick Label confirms that this printer is the latest model, it has the newest technology, and it is a workhorse. If anyone out there is interested, email me here.

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