When will Super Hots go Mainstream?

Capsicumexanthematicus

Capsicumexanthematicus

I remember back in the early nineties when I heard about habaneros for the first time and it seemed like orange was the only color they came in. Now everyone knows what they are and you can buy them from almost any grocery store's produce section. Most nurseries will have seedlings in the spring of five or more varieties.

What I'm wondering is, when will we see the super hots reach this level of mainstream fame. How long will it be before I can walk into the gardening section of home depot and pick up a tray or two of trinidad scorpion seedlings? When will I be able to go to safeway and pick up a couple pounds of bhut jolokias? And, when or if this time comes, what will the chili heads be growing?
 
If you live near AlabamaJack the buying scorp plants is possible. I have heard there is a place in MD that sells super hot starts. PM Pepp3rfreak, he is the one that told me about it and I don't have the info here.
 
Things seem to be moving faster than before. The computer has thrown us forward fast enough that I would say within a decade or before Bhuts and her Nagga sisters will at garden centers. By then they'll be classified on the lower end of super hots. The hottest who knows. If I had my way they'll find it somewhere in South America growing wild and free :)
 
It depends on where you live and the suppy and demand. I tried selling super-hots but theres not much demand in these parts except for a few sauce-makers who want lots but want them dirt cheap.
The other problem is that most people will only buy a few super-hot peppers, not many people need to buy in quantity.
 
When if they do go main stream will they still be "super hots?" Habaneros from the super markets are not nearly as hot as a hab that you will grow on your own. The same will probably happen if they start to grow Bhuts or Scorpions. Plants will be engineered to make a ton of pods and the quality/heat will be sacrificed.
 
Well, I live in Vermont and the best that I could ever hope for are the habaneros.
They sell them in the local supermarkets, but they are not very good. You know, ripening off the vine is not what I call high quality!!

I don't expect that these conditions will ever improve either. Most people that live up here have never heard of the chili species that I grow. I tried some "Caribbean Reds" from our local nursery and they produced like hell. I spoke to the owners and to my surprise they really didn't know much about them other than being hot.

What can I say, that’s the way it is up here.
 
Around here it is Burpees and Bonnies that supply HD and Lowes. So when they decide there is enough money in them...
then there is always the liability issue :eek:

Actually found 5 small nurseries within 90 miles that sell various of the hotter types. There is also a farm abt 80 miles away that claims to grow and sell 200 types. Didn`t count how many but they grow a heap of umm :lol:
 
Justaguy said:
Alph where would these be? I am close enough to make that worthwhile.
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The farm runs this http://www.pepperfestival.com/ can`t pick peppers till Sept. though at the festival.

This one you should know... http://www.chileplants.com/


I will get the addresses of the others for you. 1 is abt 15 miles outside Philly and the others in South Jersey.
 
They're already on the way to mainstream. My local Cost Plus World Market has Melinda's Naga Jolokia and Dave's Gourmet Ghost Pepper on the shelf for sale and has had it for a couple months now. When I walked by and saw that, I did a double take. I've told several people about it and they've all made dashes there to buy it just to try it. They've already had to restock the Melinda's Naga Jolokia once. So it sells quick. I also saw that Mrs. Renfros brand salsa now has a "Ghost Pepper" salsa out. Most supermarkets carry that brand and all it takes is a request to order it with their next shipment. It is, sadly, cut with other chiles. But, hey, better than nothing!

I've noticed that it all starts with the hot sauces first. It takes the hot sauces showing up and people get curious, try them, and then get addicted to those. Then they get to thinking how they'd like to have them fresh and make inquiries to the local supermarket produce manager. The produce manager contacts the speciality produce importer/distributor and if they don't have it, they find it. Supermarkets don't want to be caught off-guard on the latest food trends anymore. They learned that the hard way about carrying organics and have been playing johnny-come-lately catch-up ever since. Our local supermarket has an entire half a row of nothing but dried chiles from Pequins to Habaneros to de Arbols and everything in between. They learned the hard way (again) that having Hispanic foods doesn't mean you have a few Old El Paso Taco Kits. Supermarkets are more responsive to what people want now, especially with the internet and the rise of speciality grocers and ethnic grocery stores. You just have to ask, keep asking, and send friends in to ask.

The next step after that are the home gardeners who eat these chiles and want to cut out the middlemen and grow it themselves. Most of the garden plant growers pay close attention to trends in food. It was only about two years after heirloom tomatoes became popular that garden centers started carrying various heirloom tomato plants. They have a learning curve on what certain varieties need in order to grow them and transport them on a commercial scale and be successful. That takes a year to two years of research and development and usually nurseries and garden centers close to their main growing operations will be "beta test" sites where they'll see how the plants do and how well they sell.

There is always money in groceries and gardening. Since most business strategies rely on a certain percentage of growth per year, the only way they can do that is to introduce new things. The amount of food consumed has a 2% growth per year as it pertains to population increases in the United States. So, the only way to get 10% company growth, for example, is to start selling stuff the "other guy" doesn't have or selling new stuff that everyone's talking about. You won't make a big splash in the market selling just another lame white sandwich bread. But offer some new chiles no one has seen before and you will.
 
I don't believe they'll ever reach gardening stores in major amounts as the public can't eat them. Hell, my wife gets pissed at me when I toss 15 orange thai peppers in my stir fry. :) We're a long away from the day of the heat lovers being at every street corner. What we do as a hobby doesn't equate to profit for big gardening centers. Everyone buys banana peppers, 1% of the world even cares about Scorpions and also there's liability for the dumb 10 year old who eats one whole. lol.
 
A while back somebody posted they were looking for seeds. One of the members generously responded.... then did a follow up saying sorry but had to back out due to finding out the recipient was a minor. Really got me thinking how much trouble you could get into if something happened to them. Especially since I hope to be sending out a bunch of review sample boxes this fall. As a parent if somebody sent my son a scorpion with out my knowledge I would probably freak out. If a kid had some sort of serious reaction I could see some people heading straight to their attorney weather the kid asked for it or not. Sadly I can totally see an attorney arguing that a Trinidad Scorpion could be a dangerous weapon or something silly like that.
 
midwestchilehead said:
I can argue that. I can argue against it too. Depends on who is paying me ;)
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I think you've reinforced his point nicely, counselor. :)

And yeah, it's a sad day when the first big suit hits because of a 'supply chain mix up' or something the like.

If I have to go to the pharmacy to get my peppers, and register any plants I buy over a certain SHU rating, I'm gonna be pissed off.

Knowing that restaurants in South Florida and Southern Arizona intentionally 'bland-out' their food for snowbirds and non-native retirees, I can't possibly imagine that there is a *large* market for superhots. THAT being said, I also can't imagine that the market is currently saturated, either.

Maybe I'm being myopic, but I think that Austin is one of a very few hotbeds for organic food/foodie trends/health food in the country. And certainly superhots are not prevalent here yet. Although at least one of the locally owned garden centers has begun carrying superhot starts with regularity. But even the 'famous' organic gardening shops around here have yet to feature them, that I've seen. And I spend WAY too much time at these places. :)
 
How awesome! This is my very first post to go yellow! :dance:


Alphaeon said:
The farm runs this http://www.pepperfestival.com/ can`t pick peppers till Sept. though at the festival.
Click to expand...

I went to this same festival in Bowers last year, it was pretty great. One guy sells Jalapeno wine there, it is fantastic.

But one of the things I remember very cleary was how packed it was. I went to the produce kiosk and asked if they had any Bhuts and the Amish girl working there said, "We did, but we sold them all. You can go pick your own if you want". Mind you, this was at 10 or 11 in the morning. I took the buggy up to the farm, they had two long rows of Bhuts constituted of possibly several hundred plants. I was able to pick,at the most, maybe a dozen red pods from these; that's how picked clean it had been. There is definately a huge demand for the hottest pepper in the world (I know this isn't true anymore but it's what everyone is hearing now, who used to think the red savina was the hottest). I really think with the right marketing people could make a killing selling super hots.
 
I scoured Pike's Place Market in Seattle last year numerous times looking for superhots without any success. All the stands and stores had jalapenos, serranos, and orange habaneros as the hottest chiles. All of them looked at me like I was speaking Chinese when I asked about Bhut Jalokias or any other superhots. Most of them would only insist that the orange habanero was the hottest chile in the world...and I would just walk away. I think superhots going mainstream in the US will never happen. It is true that most Mexican restaurants tone down the heat in the food because too many people complain about the heat. Complainers get a whole lot more attention than complimenters IMHO. One exception I know of in Albuquerque serves very hot food and is excellent. Whenever I ask a server or owner at a Mexican restaurant why they don't serve hot chiles, I get the same answer...too many complaints. Plenty of people can come up with an exception, or two, but superhots going mainstream - I don't believe it.
 
It's probably just my area, but I wouldn't say habaneros are mainstream. Wal-Mart doesn't carry them (though they sell the live plants in spring, go figure...). And even though several other local stores do carry them, they always seem to have been sitting there for a while, rotting away--mushy and shriveled. An indication that almost no one buys them... or that the store orders too many? Either way, it's the same at every store that sells them. I don't know, all I know is that I don't buy them (or even look at them) any more since I grow my own. Similarly, almost no one I know likes anything hot. Most people I know like so little heat, you can barely feel it.

Hell, even the jalapenos sold here are weak and safe for the masses... they are anything from not hot at all (Giant Eagle) to halfway decent heat but still not really (Wal-Mart). I am still surprised at how much the Jalapeno M and Biker Billy I grew kicked my ass last year; I have never had anything like it, and they make the local store-bought jalapenos seem like banana peppers. Seriously... a huge difference.

I'm sure its popularity is higher in other states and especially other countries, though. But considering so many people are such wimps, I seriously doubt the superhots will go mainstream any time soon... if ever. But that doesn't matter, since I started growing peppers, I'm not gonna stop, and I honestly don't care if the stores carry them or if anyone around here even likes hot peppers or not.
 
Capsicumexanthematicus said:
How awesome! This is my very first post to go yellow! :dance:




I went to this same festival in Bowers last year, it was pretty great. One guy sells Jalapeno wine there, it is fantastic.

But one of the things I remember very cleary was how packed it was. I went to the produce kiosk and asked if they had any Bhuts and the Amish girl working there said, "We did, but we sold them all. You can go pick your own if you want". Mind you, this was at 10 or 11 in the morning. I took the buggy up to the farm, they had two long rows of Bhuts constituted of possibly several hundred plants. I was able to pick,at the most, maybe a dozen red pods from these; that's how picked clean it had been. There is definately a huge demand for the hottest pepper in the world (I know this isn't true anymore but it's what everyone is hearing now, who used to think the red savina was the hottest). I really think with the right marketing people could make a killing selling super hots.
Click to expand...

Friday is the day to go :dance: We went back 2 weeks later and caught alot of the unripe that had ripened. Wanted to go again but never got there.
 
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