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ChiliHeads as thieves???

AJ Drew

AJ Drew

Ran accross the strangest claim by Ed Currie of Puckerbutt.  Evidently, he doesn't let anyone know where he grows his peppers because ChiliHeads will come steal them.

"He treats plot locations as state secrets for fear competitors will sneak in and steal his peppers."

See more at: http://readingeagle.com/ap/article/in-south-carolina-the-worlds-hottest-chile-pepper#sthash.Q5ks9Fmh.dpuf

I know folk have been know to trash each other in the forums.  I am sure some of that is competition talking.  But do folk really go all spook / black ops on each other and try to steal from each other?  If so, wow there are some twisted individuals in the business.  Seriously?

"
He treats plot locations as state secrets for fear competitors will sneak in and steal his peppers. - See more at: http://readingeagle.com/ap/article/in-south-carolina-the-worlds-hottest-chile-pepper#sthash.Q5ks9Fmh.dpuf
 
Reaper (seeds) are quite valuable, but I doubt that large numbers will be stolen.. try to move a lot of stolen product, I bet it would be noticed by some other chilihead. If there is theft, I would figure it would be relatively low impact thefts.

Though sabotage is a whole other story. If you do well, you get enemies. Imagine what a one $30 jerrycan of roundup would do with your crops..

I don't say he has those enemies, but with such an operation I would not risk it. Jealous people can do mean things. Better safe than sorry.

On the other side, I'd also hate it if "fans" kept showing up to see your crops anyway.
 
lol - I've never seen pepper folks "trash each other in the forums"

Usually they're helping each other.

Ed's one of the nicest growers I've ever met & have had the pleasure of doing business with him a couple of times now.

You'll not find a more honest man
 
Lucky Dog Hot Sauce said:
lol - I've never seen pepper folks "trash each other in the forums"

Usually they're helping each other.

Ed's one of the nicest growers I've ever met & have had the pleasure of doing business with him a couple of times now.

You'll not find a more honest man
Click to expand...
Like every industry there are the few bad apples.  MOST people in the chile industrty support each other and the chile industry as a whole.  I don't know about the whole SecretGrowSite of Ed Currie.  If he has something of value and has reason to believe the pods will be stolen and the seeds sold....:shrug:  .....maybe he does have reason to be paraniod....   
 
We've seen a few "bad apple" merchants here on THP....  It Happens, even in your own back yard.....
 
Oh that's true SL - but that's a far cry from black ops stuff. lol

I can't quite picture Ed in a tactical suit in his field at night with night vision goggles. :rofl:
 
salsalady said:
If he has something of value and has reason to believe the pods will be stolen and the seeds sold....:shrug: 
Click to expand...
 
LOL SL he sells the seeds (and pods?) so that can't be it. It must be the fear of being raided and they sell his crops. Not a proprietary thing.
 
EDIT: See below, I get it now. Article worded funny.
 
I guess anything of value can be stolen.

Maybe the concern is someone swiping a pod and entering it into a competition. Seems odd since you can just buy pods from him at a reasonable rate.

And as THP said, you can buy seeds from PB as well.

I would suggest that anyone stealing from a grower of chiles isn't a "chilehead" - just a thieving asshole.

So the topic title is probably what's causing confusion. ChiliHeads are usually cooperative and respectful.

Thieves are thieves.
 
Okay I went to the link.
 
"Currie grows more than 15,000 chile pepper plants at 30 sites in North and South Carolina, plus sites in four other states, and at his home. He treats plot locations as state secrets for fear competitors will sneak in and steal his peppers. So-called chiliheads are a contentious lot, arguing incessantly about whose chile is hottest, Guinness notwithstanding."
 
Chileheads = competitors in this quote.
 
And he is always trying to come up with hotter stuff, so they are not talking about the stable stuff he sells.
 
Now it makes sense to me. The article just sensationalizes it. And calls competitors chileheads. 
 
The Hot Pepper - You getting it freaks me out because you are essentially saying that I just walked into a business of cut throats.  Seriously?  So far, althought there are a few people offering bad reviews, most everyone I have met seem like the nicest folk around.

Reason I ask is that I am more of a local farmers market type.  Our family comes first, then market (cause we need $), then neighbors, then the Catholic food bank.  Not blowing my horn here guys, I take from that food bank when I need to and I am not ashamed of it.  Local community needs to rely on itself.  Anyway, so I start the online pepper thing and wow there is a lot of talk about some mighty negative stuff.  Kind of weirds this old hippie biker drop out of a homesteader out a bit.

Now please do not get me wrong.  I get ripped off at the farmers markets and renaissance fairs.  Not saying that the folk I deal with on a regular basis are saints.  But the idea of raiding someone's pepper field is just, well it is just kind of weird.

Now wondering about the Pepper Ninja.

On that Pepper Ninja thing, John Bullushi is dead.  Is John Candy still alive?  I am thinking Canada developes something hotter then the Carolina Reaper, so the US sends in the Pepper Ninja to steel a crop for cloning.
 
ajdrew said:
The Hot Pepper - You getting it freaks me out because you are essentially saying that I just walked into a business of cut throats.  Seriously?  So far, althought there are a few people offering bad reviews, most everyone I have met seem like the nicest folk around.
Click to expand...
 
I'm not in the growing business, a chilehead to me, is a hot pepper lover, and one can be in the growing biz and not even like them. So I have no idea. That's not my side of the biz. I'm just interpreting the article. :)
 
In reading the article I saw where he has grown several other hybrids which are hotter than the Reaper, which seemed to help me (in my mind) understand why he would be keeping some secrets. 
 
Not sure the Reaper itself is being kept secret anymore since you can buy it at some many places.
 
Currie is ready for any assault on his Guinness record. He’s produced eight other hybrids even hotter than the Reaper, he said. The hottest averages 2.83 million SHUs in scientific lab testing, he said, far higher than the Reaper’s 1.56-million rating. - See more at: http://readingeagle.com/ap/article/in-south-carolina-the-worlds-hottest-chile-pepper#sthash.Q5ks9Fmh.QBRsDyD1.dpuf
 
Currie is ready for any assault on his Guinness record. He’s produced eight other hybrids even hotter than the Reaper, he said. The hottest averages 2.83 million SHUs in scientific lab testing, he said, far higher than the Reaper’s 1.56-million rating. - See more at: http://readingeagle.com/ap/article/in-south-carolina-the-worlds-hottest-chile-pepper#sthash.Q5ks9Fmh.QBRsDyD1.dpuf
Currie is ready for any assault on his Guinness record. He’s produced eight other hybrids even hotter than the Reaper, he said. The hottest averages 2.83 million SHUs in scientific lab testing, he said, far higher than the Reaper’s 1.56-million rating. - See more at: http://readingeagle.com/ap/article/in-south-carolina-the-worlds-hottest-chile-pepper#sthash.Q5ks9Fmh.QBRsDyD1.dpuf
 
 
Click to expand...
 


Currie is ready for any assault on his Guinness record. He’s produced eight other hybrids even hotter than the Reaper, he said. The hottest averages 2.83 million SHUs in scientific lab testing, he said, far higher than the Reaper’s 1.56-million rating.
He’s holding the hybrids in reserve. If anyone tries to break his record, he’ll introduce one of them with documentation to reclaim the crown, he said.
- See more at: http://readingeagle.com/ap/article/in-south-carolina-the-worlds-hottest-chile-pepper#sthash.Q5ks9Fmh.QBRsDyD1.dpuf
 
BPwilley, got it now.  It is not being worried about people stealing peppers, it is stealing dna.  I still like the image of John Candy as the Pepper Ninja invading Canads.
 
Ajdrew,    I agree, the visual in my head of a pepper ninja is funny.   I keep waiting for the neighbor hood kids to try to raid my garden of peppers.  They would be pretty surprised if they tried to chomp on most of the peppers.  Although that would be a pretty good deterrent for the rest of the summer!
 
Sorry for all the repeats in the first post.  They did not show up and I kept trying to paste them.  Duhhhh.
 
Take care!
 
So,how is anyone supposed to know what field/greenhouse or whatever grows what?
 
Are they reapers for producing sauces,pods or whatever?
 
I'd guess it would take an inside job to steal the right pods from the right plants to even come near messing up his quest or future sales of his next world record hybrids.
 
I'd guess his bigger fields were for production of products now on the market.
 
NOT his super secret NEW record holders.
 
I'd hope the new gazillion SK stuff would be in greenhouses.
 
They would demand controlled growing conditions etc.
 
All you need is a relatively small # of Healthy-isolated plants to have seeds to sell,not acres of the same plant (compared to the # you'd need to make salable product.Be it seeds,plants or whatever.)
 
I think he might be setting himself up so if ANYONE comes up with a hotter pepper he can claim it was something he created that was ripped off from his grow or whatever.
Remember the reaper pre release crap posted everywhere.
Another pj type campaign in the making?
 
Yup,he's the good guy,he didn't know or let the reaper P.R. stuff happen,knew nothing about it...good vendor,bad vendor...
 
$ is $. who cares how you get it?As long as you get it...
 
My opinion is just that,worth exactly what you paid me for it.   :)
 
THP nailed it - the article sensationalized it.

The author took a liberty & said the thieves are "so-called chileheads".

As someone who's been interviewed several times, I can attest that authors LOVE to misquote people or take things out of context if it sounds juice or adds to their story.

I think this topic is much ado about nothing, and I don't believe chileheads should be called out as thieves. Nor should growers be generalized as thieves.

Maybe Ed is secretive & maybe it's due to fear of an unscrupulous competitor. That's much more tame than the topic title suggests.
 
If you guys want a good read,"carolina reaper" on p.j.'s website. All I can say is wow. And ajdrew the grossest biggest turd ive met is a grower so there's some con men out there.
 
Sicman, about the grocest person you ever met being a grower; that blows my mind.  I do not know that many people who specifically grow pepeprs.  I know many who grow heirloom tomato and other homestead / small producton / hands on crops.  All are laid back hippie dippie types like me. 

Now gross, sure.  You haven't seen gross till you have seen me one spring mucking out one of the duck ponds into the garden.  Not just shit.  Not just duck shit.  But aged duck shit. Nothing says gross like aged duck shit.

Lucky Dog, sorry if the topic title offended.  Please note the three big ol question marks at the end.  The title is ASKING why chiliheads are being presented as thieves.  Think it is a very valid question considering the article.  The answer seems to be that the author is an idiot.
 
ajdrew said:
The answer seems to be that the author is an idiot.
Click to expand...
 
It's journalism. Take it for what it is. I can hear it in my head like on one of those investigative type shows...
 
Interviewer: So where do you grow these peppers.
 
Ed: North and South Carolina, plus sites in four other states, and at home.
 
Interviewer: So you won't tell us exactly where... (Camera goes out of focus on the two subjects as the man with the deep voice narrates.)
 
Narrator: He treats plot locations as state secrets for fear competitors will sneak in and steal his peppers. So-called chiliheads are a contentious lot, arguing incessantly about whose chile is hottest...
 
:lol:
 
I wouldn't read too much into it man.
 
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