Updates
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2024 SDCF Roundup from Jenny
by Amrit MadhooWow, another year has flown by here at the Chilli Farm! We started the year with a flurry of new faces at the Farm; Giordy joined as our events co-ordinator and is the smiling face that you’ll see if you come across our market stall at any events in 2025… Kate joined as our Administrator as well, and has spent her time ever since getting everything and everyone in ship shape across the business! We shut down production for 3 weeks at the beginning of the year in order to renovate our warehouse and production kitchen – Manager Ben had a big job on his hands to keep everyone organised, informed and keep stock levels on point! This big overhaul gave us lots more storage space in a 2-storey warehouse, as well as fully enclosing and doubling the floorspace of Dan’s production kitchen. This fully renovated and modernised production space allowed us to successfully apply for SALSA food hygiene certification – this is a huge milestone for a small food business like ours, and just shows our serious commitment to super high standards of food hygiene and safety – we also passed first time with flying colours which the SALSA auditor told us is very rare indeed! Amrit got to work building a new, undercover workshop and work area for the Horticulture Team – this space allows them somewhere (relatively) warm and dry to work when the weather is being unkind, as well as organised storage for the MANY pieces of equipment that they need throughout the year. The workshop area also formed the venue for our Spring Growing Workshops. We said goodbye to Chef Dave who took his well-earned retirement after 10+ years at the Farm; Dave was involved in developing some of our longstanding and very popular sauces, and also had a reputation as a Mr Fix It who could turn his hand to anything, so he will be sorely missed around here! Dave’s protégé Chef Dan took the reins from him and has been running a super-efficient kitchen ever since, what a great addition to the team he has been! During 2024 we also said goodbye to another lovely and hugely missed member of our SDCF family; we were all devastated when Justin our Shop Manager passed away from cancer in the summer. Justin was the life and soul of our Farm Shop and was the creative mind behind much of our social media and marketing. The Farm and the Shop are full of happy memories of Justin which we all treasure. We took the next step this year in our RHS journey, with a show garden at RHS Hyde Hall over the summer – we were delighted to be awarded a 5 Flower Gold award for our display garden! This marks our 2nd 5 Flower Gold award, having received one for our display at RHS Rosemoor in 2023. This year we also exhibited at RHS Hampton Court (though we didn’t have a display garden there) – but we were able to exhibit both plants and produce which went down really well with the RHS crowd! We launched more new products in 2024 – we started our Caribbean Collection, inspired by Amrit’s island home of Trinidad & Tobago, with 2 new products – Mango Chilli Sauce and Ginger & Lime Chilli Chocolate. For the 2024 Festive Season we launched a limited edition Winter Spice Chilli Chocolate too – this was dreamed up by Elsa our Chocolatier. This is going down really well since we have had our Christmassy Chalet at Exeter Christmas Market – our biggest ever market stall! We don’t sit still for long here at SDCF so we can’t wait to share with you what 2025 brings!
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Build your Spice Tolerance with Hannah
by Amrit MadhooBuild your Spice Tolerance with Hannah, Fulfilment Manager @ SDCF Common Myths of Chillies & Spice that I thought were true… “All chillies are spicy” “You either have a spice tolerance or you don’t” Heat is measured by the Scoville Scale. The Scoville Scale lists chilli peppers categorized by their spiciness and the amount of capsaicin in Scoville Heat Units (SHU). Capsaicin is the chemical that makes chilli peppers burn. Lets embark on this journey together: experimenting with chillies, building our spice tolerance, and hopefully seeing some health benefits. Today we are going to attempt a chilli at 0-5000 SHU, at the lower end of the Scoville scale. Some Chillis at 0-5000 SHU are: Trinidad Pimento Chillies (Seasoning Peppers) 0 SHUs Anaheim (Hatch) Chillies 0 SHUs Poblano Chillies 1,000 to 2,000 SHUs Kashmiri Chillies 1,000 to 2,000 SHUs Numex 6-4 Chillies 1,000 to 2,000 SHUs Hungarian Hot Wax Chillies 2,000 SHUs Guajillo Chillies 3000-5000 SHUs Santa Fe Grande Chillies 5,000 SHUs Here's the recipe I am going to add my chosen chilli into... Spiced Carrot & Lentil Soup For this recipe I have used Trinidad Pimento Chillies - but you can use any of the chillies in the list above! You will need: Oil Salt Pepper Turmeric Coriander (fresh or dried) Garlic (cloves or powder) x1 Veg Stock Cube x1 Medium Onion x 8 Medium Carrots x5 Trinidad Pimento Chillies Red Lentils Steps: To the pan: Add oil, x1 chopped medium onion, x5 chopped Trinidad Pimento Chillies, garlic, salt & pepper. Fry on a medium heat. Add 750ml boiling water, x1 veg stock cube, & x4 chopped carrots. Cover and cook on a medium heat until carrots are soft. Blend the contents of the pan. Add 250ml boiling water, x4 chopped carrots. Cover and cook on a medium heat until the second round of carrots are soft. Add red lentils (more if you like your soup thick like me). Add coriander if you like it. Taste and add salt, pepper if required. Simmer until water has reduced. Blend again but leave some carrots whole. Add a thin layer of turmeric to the top of soup and then stir in – to add colour. Chilli Tip: Remove the seeds before cooking. Why am I interested in experimenting with chillis? I’ve been on a little health journey recently and am super excited to try chillies for medicinal purposes, but still want to be kind to myself, and build a tolerance at my own pace. Benefits of including chilli in your diet could include: Reduces risk of type 2 diabetes Prevents allergies Reduces inflammation Boosts immune system, helps fight colds, flu and fungal infections Improves metabolism and helps with weight loss Healthy heart Improves eye health Helps migraines Prevents bad breath Healthy hair and skin Digestive tract/ulcers/upset tummy Promotes red blood cell growth (anaemia and fatigue) Reduces cancer risk Helps with skin conditions (calms psoriasis) Reduces joint pain Why are you interested in experimenting with Chillis? Whatever your reason, lets enjoy the journey together 😊 All the best, Hannah x
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Lifechanging Feedback from a Happy Customer!
by Kate TillerDear All I just wanted to send you an email to thank you for truly changing / saving my life. I have suffered with an eating disorder for many years and had fallen out of love with food in general and always failed with attempts to recover because of this. One of the reasons was due to a lack of flavour, especially when it came to spice in food, as I could not find a product that had the perfect balance of heat and flavour. That was up until a couple of months ago when I had a friend visit from Devon, and she brought me a bottle of your Habanero Sauce as she knows how much I love chilli infused products. Lets just say I was hooked straight away, the sauce is amazing, such a great balance of heat and flavour and actually has the kick that is advertised, unlike other products I have had in the past, that simply do not deliver on their claims. The 1st bottle disappeared within a day and I have purchased numerous bottles since - this in turn has allowed me to actually start my path to recovery and has rekindled my interest in food, and I now look forward to having food with the sauce (its used on everything), I have started to gain a bit of weight and have managed to actually stick to the road to recovery and it is all down to your wonderful product and I cannot thank you enough for creating it, it truly is the best Chilli Sauce I have ever had. My family life has also become much better as well, especially as I am gaining weight, sticking to it and my kids love seeing dad eating again, my son also loves the sauce. I am looking forward to to trying some more of the many amazing products you sell as I am sure they are all as good as the habanero Sauce Once again I cannot thank you enough for creating a product that has genuinely saved my life and rekindled my family together. You have created a truly unique product you should be so proud of Regards David
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A Year on the Chilli Farm - from Ben our Operations Manager
by Amrit Madhoo2024 so far…. This year has been a particularly busy one for us, exciting but not without its challenges. I thought I’d take this opportunity to summarise some of the key goings on to date. We’ve had many improvements on the farm, thanks to Amrit the horticultural team now have a much-needed workshop as well as a fully enclosed wash station, a welcome protection against the elements! In the warehouse we have our new mezzanine (known as “top acre”) and kitchen extension which has gained us some valuable storage space and allows us room to expand our production. This leads us onto SALSA, one of the main factors behind these improvements. I’m not talking about our range of award-winning sauces… SALSA stands for “Safe and Local Supplier Approval” and is a food safety certification scheme aimed at smaller producers like us but with a strict set of food preparation and hygiene standards. We were audited for the first time in May and I’m pleased to say we passed with flying colours, a credit to the team and their commitment. We weren’t able to celebrate our SALSA achievement long though as we faced unprecedented increases to our chocolate materials - you can read more about this in our August blog. Another big project for us was our solar installation, positioned on top of warehouse and farm shop, our panels were able to generate enough electricity over the summer months that we were almost fully off-grid. We’ve also now switched to a renewable provider so on those darker days we’re still powering from renewable sources. We’ve released a handful of exciting new products this year including our Caribbean themed Ginger & Lime Chilli Chocolate and Mango Chilli Sauce. Both have been a big hit and may well become full time members of the SDCF range! Our growing season has been a bit of a mixed bag as Phil, our Horticultural Manager, discussed in his Autumn update. Although there’s been some disappointments (mainly due to the weather!) the team have done a great job to navigate the challenges this year and there’s been plenty to celebrate; We’ve sold a record number of plants and managed to fulfil all preorders in half the usual time! Our seed collection is on track and will allow us to offer our biggest selection ever in 2025! We’ve continued our partnership with the RHS attending Hampton Court, Malvern & Hyde Hall this year, achieving a 5 flower gold award for the second year running! As I write this our harvest is at its peak so I’ve been drafted in to help. It’s all hands on deck to strip the plants before the weather turns so I’m heading back to the tunnels! Ben
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🌶100% made with renewable energy🌶
by Amrit MadhooWe are delighted to share with you all that all our lovely chilli produce is now 100% made with renewable energy! At South Devon Chilli Farm we value our natural resources and always try our best to work in harmony with our environment. So this was an important step for us to take as a company and we are thrilled to have achieved it 💚 Our solar panels which were installed in Spring 2024 have had a large part to play in moving us away from fossil fuel sources. These have been working really hard for us on sunny days to produce sometimes all the energy we need on the farm during daylight hours! This has included running our cooking equipment in the kitchen, our chocolate machines, our labelling machine (aka "the duchess"), powering our fridges and freezers, lighting the farm shop, warehouse and office - and keeping our chilli plants warm at the cooler start of the growing season. When its dark (or too cloudy) we have a contract with a 100% renewable energy provider so we can be assured that any additional energy needs we have are also coming from renewable sources. We're excited to be able to bring you the same fantastic products, made by hand on our farm by our small team, with low food miles, and UK grown chillies - now even greener than ever before!
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