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It’s a new South African culinary legend - the Peppadew range of piquantÊ pepper products originating in a chance encounter and now exported across the globe. Colin Chinery talks to Peppadew MD Phil Ovens about the tang of sweet success. 2
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Peppadew FEATURE
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houlder high and laden with a small bright red fruit, it was an errant bush of a type farmer Johan Steenkamp had never seen, before stumbling across it in the garden of his vacation home in the Eastern Cape. Its fruit was like a cross between a cherry tomato and a very round chilli and had a distinctive and compelling flavour; a mixture of sweet and peppery. Impressed, he saved some seeds from the errant bush, cultivated them and developed a recipe. Fourteen years later it is known universally as Peppadew, a range of pickles and sauces made from this variety of sweet-tasting pepper called piquanté, the first registered fruit to be brought to the world market since the kiwi fruit. It’s one of the top listed brands in South Africa, a national culinary treasure, and currently exported to 26 countries and expanding.
It’s an awesome product and has always been an awesome product “The contemporary style and flirtatious attitude of the Peppadew brand communication has found a sweet - and spicy - spot in the hearts of consumers around the world,” says Peppadew Managing Director Phil Ovens. In 11 years he has overseen the business has grown 30 fold from a minute enterprise to one of the upper mid-sized companies in South Africa, closing in on R200m turnover. When asked if had tasted the product he responded “I had tasted it. It’s an awesome product and has always been an awesome product. That’s one of the reasons we got involved. It’s unique in its taste and has this huge variety of uses. So it wasn’t difficult for us to imagine the possibilities and potential when we started out.” www.southafricamag.com
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The distinctive and seductive flavour of the fruit Johan Steenkamp chanced upon in his garden has fast made it a barbeque favourite and with a versatility reaching across a range of recipes; pizza, pasta, salads, omelettes, dips, kebabs and sandwiches, or stuffed with a range of soft cheeses. It has a 24 month shelf life, there are no preservatives or additives, and Peppadew’s pickling and processing recipe is a famous ‘Secret.’ – “exactly the same as KFC and Col Sanders.” Fiery it is not. On the Scoville scale that measures the hotness of a chili pepper based on the amount of capsaicin – the fiery chemical compound and tear-jerker –the world’s hottest chili, the Naga Jolokia comes in at a searing 1 040 000, while the Peppadew piquanté barely bites at 1 177. But as an international food product Peppadew is hot. Five years after launch, Britain became the first export country and the product now sells in all major UK supermarkets with the exception of M&S - “We
are not prepared to go into a House brand.” In March Mexico became the latest export market. “Wherever we take this product in the world we have always had a hugely positive response to the taste and flavour,” says Ovens. “And because you’ve got a brand so backed by something that delivers as well as the piquante fruit does, it’s made my life and my job a whole lot easier. To launch a product that delivers, versus launching a product that is average, is so much simpler.” Johan Steenkamp proved a better visionary than businessman, his early marketing attempts running quickly into the ground. But he retained a financial interest in the subsequent acquisition and company formulations that have grown Peppadew to its present size. Due to unfortunate illness he has sold off his complete interest in the business which was bought out by Peppadew International. “We are now a free standing private company and we will always be a proudly South African based company,” says Ovens, 54. “But this doesn’t mean, going forward, that we will always be a proudly based South African company to our own detriment. The business will continue to grow. We are probably the dominant brand in the anti pasta category, and we would be foolish not to use that dominance to roll it out in the future into other anti pasta products with the brand. We will risk minimise and we will also market the product from other areas in the world.” Late last year Peppadew products gained a potentially massive entry into the American flavour market, with a new and exclusive
We will always be a proudly South African based company
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Peppadew FEATURE
licensing agreement with US flavour house, Bell Flavors & Fragrances. Bell is now poised to target the Peppadew flavour at sweet applications as well as savoury. Baked goods, confectionery and ice creams are some of the possibilities, along with beverages and savoury sauces. It is a major break through, but to date the benefits are relatively small. “Once you begin submitting to the larger organisations, the flavour goes into their research centres where it will stay, and a launch takes at least 18 months to two years,” says Phil Ovens. “So this relationship with Bell is in its infancy
We are probably the dominant brand in the anti pasta category stage, and while the prospects are great, the benefits at this stage are small.” Bell believes Peppadew piquanté peppers could be the next Superfruit. These are ‘natural wonders’ whose claimed exceptional nutritional, health and taste qualities draw niche customers to a brand marketed specifically with superfruit health claims. Phil Ovens is unimpressed. “I’ve always tried to underplay the health side of the fruit. It has a high level of vitamins – vitamin C and key ingredients you get in tomatoes etc; all very good for you. But one must be very very careful, and launching a product and driving it on a health premise is something I’ve avoided like the plague. We want to develop our brand
based on products that deliver - a unique and different flavour.” Ovens say the rate of sale per capita and usage is far greater in the domestic market than in many overseas countries Peppadew is still penetrating. “You find a hook on which to get the product on the shelf and if that’s the one that sells then let it go. Then over time you start marketing the versatility and usage of the product. “We are finding that the real versatility is only starting to be felt in a country like the UK now, compared with South Africa where the consumer has adopted it as being theirs. In South Africa it’s used everywhere.” Phil Ovens returns to a favourite theme and selling point – that special piquanté Peppadew taste. “It’s sweet, then it’s sour… then at the end you get a little bit of what we term a love bite. And when you describe it this way and people taste it they say, ‘too damned right! That’s exactly how it tastes’” end
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