Aloha Everyone,
Thank you for all of your support over the past year. We have had a successful 2009 and look forward to 2010.
Many of you have asked me why my peppers are so expensive. The reasons are many-
1) We are a totally organic company and the man hours per plant equal about 3 hours per week just to keep them going.
2) We use organic Neem oil to spray our Bhut’s every 10 days or as needed to keep the white fly in check and Neem oil is very expensive.
3) We have 3 types of fruit flies in Hawaii and this requires us to rinse our Bhuts off every 3 days to rid the plants of their larvae.
4) Bhut take at least 4 months to produce peppers and we fertilize every 10-14 days with organic horse manure, kelp, fish emulsion, etc.
5) The ripe Bhuts are hand-picked at their bright red stage. Since the peppers ripen at different times, this requires us to harvest just about everyday.
6) The Bhuts are then washed and air dried. Next we take the seeds out of the peppers by hand which takes about 60-90 seconds per pepper. This requires 4 layers of vinyl gloves, a respirator, goggles, long sleeve shirts and a lot of patience.
7) The peppers are sent to market 3 different ways:
1. Fresh which requires one day overnight air to the West Coast only.
2. Semi-dried. Dehydrated for approximately 4 hours. The peppers will take a 2 day “overnight” flight to the remaining parts of the USA.
3. Dried flakes. Dehydrated for 8-12 hours then ground into flakes.
All of this labor is done by hand. Our Bhut Jolokia peppers are the best in the world, period. I will put the taste, the heat, and the size of our peppers against any other grower in the world. Our peppers average 7 grams (1/4 ounce) per pepper when fresh. Our “heat” testing via High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) averages just under 900,000 Scoville Heat Units (SHU). The peppers that most other companies sell are no where near as hot and many times don’t even test at 500,000 SHU. The reason for this is our rich organic soil which I have personally been amending for 14 years and our warm, tropical climate here in Hawaii.
Here is some useful information on the peppers.
1) Average weight fresh= 7 grams, 4 per ounce, 65 per pound
2) Average weight semi dried= 2.5 grams, 12 per ounce, 130 per pound
3) Average weight dried= 1 gram, 28 per ounce, 454 per pound
So, when you order an ounce of flakes, this takes 28 peppers and a lot of labor to get to this point. I hope this makes sense to all of you and explains why our peppers are the most expensive. They are the best, and if you want the best, you have to pay the price. BTW, we are the only company that supplies fresh organic Bhut Jolokia peppers 12 months a year. Most of our peppers go to 4 and 5 star restaurants, private chefs, and to Organic Food suppliers. We have had a good year and can now supply our peppers via online sales.
Once again, mahalo for your support and happy holidays!
Jamie