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'Passion for peppers:' Business is hot for South Okanagan couple

Sarah Harper (left) and Stu Smith surrounded by hot pepper plants in their greenhouse in Cawston in early spring.
Sarah Harper (left) and Stu Smith surrounded by hot pepper plants in their greenhouse in Cawston in early spring.
Image Credit: SUBMITTED / Stu Smith

Anyone who frequents farmers markets in the BC Interior may have spotted Stu Smith and Sarah Harper offering tastings of their hot sauces.

Smith wears a bottle of hot sauce in a holster on his hip and there's a sign at the booth with arrows pointing to safe sauces to try and the dangerous ones labelled Bear Spray and Grizzly Bear Spray.

Perhaps most notable is how much fun Smith has with brave taste testers.

“I’ve done different vocations and this is the most novel and hilarious thing I’ve ever done, it keeps me laughing every day,” he said. “The medium of spicy food to engage with the public is hysterical. Humour exists between someone’s perceived heat tolerance and the reality of it.”

What began as a small gardening venture for the couple has expanded to full-time farming and hot sauce operation with products available in roughly 200 stores across western Canada including Natures Fare and Urban Fare.

The avid gardeners met in Revelstoke in 2010 where they started growing garlic to sell on their one-acre property. The little venture blossomed into the Revelstoke Garlic Festival that drew 40 vendors and roughly 1,600 people every year for six years. Part of the proceeds went to a local food initiative.

During those years the couple made packaged goods for consumers.

“Sarah is a chef and a beekeeper so we were doing this honey garlic drizzle and making salsas,” Smith said. 

It was the inception of their expanding business, Stoke the Fire.

A wheelbarrow load of hot peppers on Stu Smith and Sarah Harper
A wheelbarrow load of hot peppers on Stu Smith and Sarah Harper's seven-acre farm in Cawston.
Image Credit: SUBMITTED / Stu Smith

In 2015, Smith sourced specialty chilli pepper seeds from the U.S. and bought some mixed boxes of Carolina reaper peppers, ghost peppers, scorpion peppers and a variety of exotic habaneros.

“Ten years ago, there wasn’t much of what we deem the super hots where you’re above that millionth Scoville mark,” he said. “Looking back, that sparked a deep passion for growing peppers. I was taken aback by the beauty and variety of them.”

The pair received a beneficial grant for scaling up the business and started up the bigger farm in Cawston that now has 6,000 pepper plants of 60 different varietals growing on it.

On site is an automated bottling line for packaging the hot sauces made almost entirely from ingredients grown on the farm. There's a greenhouse, and a sea can freezer where the produce is stock piled to ensure the sauce is available all year round.

“A large portion of peppers we grow are super hots, but we also grow a lot of heritage peppers, like really cool authentic heritage Mexican peppers,” Smith said. “A lot of peppers are international, I’m always trying new varieties. We have unknown varieties in the mid-heat range as well.”

Growing this many peppers is a huge job, and the pair grow them all from seed.

“They’re finicky in nature, but once you get the hang of it, it’s good,” Smith said. “Having a handle on how to grow them and get the most out of them is the trick.

While pests like mice and other mammals stay away from the spicy fair, there are other challenges the farmers have to overcome.

“Last year, I over-planted the greenhouse and the density opened the door for aphids,” Smith said. “I was controlling them with natural sprays and ladybugs. We have wild space on the property to encourage habitat for beneficial insects.

“We rotate our crops to keep bacterial and fungal diseases from setting in. The wind that constantly blows through Cawston blows pests away and keeps up air flow to reduce diseases.”

When the couple isn’t farming or saucing, they are out selling the product and having fun with customers at various farmers' markets and festivals in the region. They just returned from the South Caribou Garlic Festival, are regulars at the Penticton Farmers' Market, and have a booth in Revelstoke.

One of the most popular hot sauces is the one they call Bear Spray, while Grizzly Bear Spray is similar but even spicier and the hottest sauce they sell.

“People walk up to the booth and demand the hottest sauce but I won’t give them Grizzly Bear Spray until they try the Bear Spray and we assess their life choices first,” Smith said. “Half the people don’t want to go past that point while the fire eaters are like ‘bring me more.’”

Smith said serving spicy food to the public taught him never to make assumptions based on appearances.

“You get the guy covered in tattoos with bravado you’d expect to be the fire eating dragon and has a taste of Bear Spray and crumples,” he said. “Meanwhile your spice loving grandma walks away with a bottle of Grizzly Bear Spray just happy she finally found something that gives her a kick.”

Go here to learn about Stoke the Fire and see the products.


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