I was recently told that you can't buy whole peppers from outside of Canada unless you are a certified chef. Of course he said the reason was because if he ave me a whole ghost pepper and I ate it, I could die.... yes, he actually said that. I find it odd as I have never heard of anything like peppers being controlled goods and I worked in cooking for 10 years. I don't want to call the guy out since he wants to buy some peppers from me when they are ready :-) But seriously, has anyone heard of this and how can they enforce it?
Selling question
- Thread starter ta2edfreak
- Start date
I dont believe that you will die from eating a whole pepper. People do it all the time. I think that it has to do with liability issues as almost everything else these days. Example if you sent whole peppers and they were used for other things it may come back to you since you provided them or something like that.
That was the only reason I could think of but I couldn't find anything stating that they are regulated. How could it be enforced since just about anyone can grow them? And why from just outside of Canada?
i know they put a lot of restrictions on fruit and vegtables beacuse they do not want invasive insects getting in to the crops up there they have alot of the same rules in the united states. best bet would be to look up your customs department and just ask them. there might be some exceptions like dried pods
tell your buddy, the chef that is using his credentials has to provide a special fee and you have to pass that along to him. if you are going to provide him some fresh peppers - make a few bucks of the sucker!
your buddy doesn't know what he is talking about, i could write a page or two on importing but here, you can read:
http://www.beaware.gc.ca/english/brirape.shtml#a2
in summary, one either imports for personal use or for commercial(to be resold). once you decide what category you fit in, then you have to follow the import rules both federally and provincially. so, what may be allowed into canada, may have local restrictions. here's one for you, a worthless bit of knowledge - which i am full of, thus why my head is so large, though not about fresh fruits and vegetables but.... rats are illegal in alberta. yep, you can own a rat in dartmouth, nova scotia but in calgary, alberta and the fine is hefty if caught, just ask our local chinese community. Apples can be imported into British Columbia just not from the those States directly south of that province, so when i visit BC, i can not find a nice big fat juicy apple from washington state. you having the annapolis valley so close may have NS local laws restricting certain fresh foods.
laws are different when importing/ordering from the US, Mexico(free trade laws apply) then other countries. also, if a certain country has an export restriction on products, canada will honour that restriction, if we don't have a ban already existing in place. eel skin wallets, purses and belts from certain countries. my sister-in-law is an airline stewardess and coming back from an overseas trip had her belt confiscated, i can't remember if it was hawaii or japan. point being, if trinidad had a protection on 7 pods, leaving that country and you tried to get it shipped into canada, customs would deny it.
if you think you may have trouble getting fresh pods into your hands by doing it yourself, go talk to your local grocery store manager and see what list of hot peppers he can order from within his company. it can differ from grocery store chain, (i'll personalize it for you), your local sobey's manager can go to his order binder and look up hot peppers and he may be able to order jalapeno, serano and orange habanero and that may be it. atlantic superstore may have scotch bonnets in their catalogue listing but it may be a custom order. you may find a local east indian grocer that deals with an importer that has bhuts on their list but may have never order them due to lack of knowledge, lack of demand or cost prohibiting due to a large minimum order quantities(is that an oxymoron). you might have a local caribbean grocery store that has the necessary distribution contacts with their importer. my local caribbean grocery store gets their fresh scotch bonnets from mexico, not directly, but indirectly with an importer that supplies them. my local african grocer gets their supply, probably from the same importer as they too are from mexico but they freeze their supply into baggies. you may find an import distribution company that can order exactly what you want but won't sell to end users as per their license.
good luck.
your buddy doesn't know what he is talking about, i could write a page or two on importing but here, you can read:
http://www.beaware.gc.ca/english/brirape.shtml#a2
in summary, one either imports for personal use or for commercial(to be resold). once you decide what category you fit in, then you have to follow the import rules both federally and provincially. so, what may be allowed into canada, may have local restrictions. here's one for you, a worthless bit of knowledge - which i am full of, thus why my head is so large, though not about fresh fruits and vegetables but.... rats are illegal in alberta. yep, you can own a rat in dartmouth, nova scotia but in calgary, alberta and the fine is hefty if caught, just ask our local chinese community. Apples can be imported into British Columbia just not from the those States directly south of that province, so when i visit BC, i can not find a nice big fat juicy apple from washington state. you having the annapolis valley so close may have NS local laws restricting certain fresh foods.
laws are different when importing/ordering from the US, Mexico(free trade laws apply) then other countries. also, if a certain country has an export restriction on products, canada will honour that restriction, if we don't have a ban already existing in place. eel skin wallets, purses and belts from certain countries. my sister-in-law is an airline stewardess and coming back from an overseas trip had her belt confiscated, i can't remember if it was hawaii or japan. point being, if trinidad had a protection on 7 pods, leaving that country and you tried to get it shipped into canada, customs would deny it.
if you think you may have trouble getting fresh pods into your hands by doing it yourself, go talk to your local grocery store manager and see what list of hot peppers he can order from within his company. it can differ from grocery store chain, (i'll personalize it for you), your local sobey's manager can go to his order binder and look up hot peppers and he may be able to order jalapeno, serano and orange habanero and that may be it. atlantic superstore may have scotch bonnets in their catalogue listing but it may be a custom order. you may find a local east indian grocer that deals with an importer that has bhuts on their list but may have never order them due to lack of knowledge, lack of demand or cost prohibiting due to a large minimum order quantities(is that an oxymoron). you might have a local caribbean grocery store that has the necessary distribution contacts with their importer. my local caribbean grocery store gets their fresh scotch bonnets from mexico, not directly, but indirectly with an importer that supplies them. my local african grocer gets their supply, probably from the same importer as they too are from mexico but they freeze their supply into baggies. you may find an import distribution company that can order exactly what you want but won't sell to end users as per their license.
good luck.
I was on the border services and Food regulations sites already trying to find some information and there wasnt anything directly relating to ghost peppers. Of course you may have to call and find out but thats neither here nor there. I was asking because the guy that mentioned it just moved here from Ontario and bought a local Caribbean restaurant. He was talking about his hot sauce that he makes and how it is going to out sell anything else. The ingredients just said hot peppers and when I asked him what was in it (thinking scotch bonnets mostly) he said 7 different peppers but mostly ghost peppers. My wife thought it was hot but it wasn't extremely hot. I mentioned that I grow hot peppers and that I was starting to grow ghost peppers that's when he said that you couldn't import them unless you were a gold seal chef (we won't get into that whole conversation). I thought that was rather odd since most restaurants don't have a certified chef on staff. Yes, I know that they also don't need to buy ghost peppers but that's irrelevant. He told me to contact him later when they started ripening up and we can start selling them to the other restaurants in the area and make a killing....
I was just trying to find out if anyone had heard of this. I couldn't find anything on any of the websites and i haven't been able to get hold of the proper department on the phone. Yes, it is irrelevant but I am curious. He sounded like a blow hard when I first started talking to him but if he buys peppers, I will take his money (first of course :-)