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Another new product From The Pepper Chief
The Royal Gazette - Bermuda
Outerbridge Peppers is expanding again.
Mr. Yeaton Outerbridge, owner of the Bermuda-based condiment
company, will introduce a Rum and Sherry Pepper in Bermuda and the US at
the end of October. The new
pepper will bring his line of pepper sauces up to six including rum,
mustard, bloody Mary Fix, wine and vinegar, and the original sherry.
Mr. Outerbridge decided to combine the rum and sherry peppers after he
noticed that restauranteurs and his friends mixing them on their own.
"So many people liked the two.
The market told me what to do."
Watching the market is what drew Mr. Outerbridge and his late cousin
Robert into the business 25 years ago.
They noticed that everyone seemed to have their own sherry
peppers. "So we
decided to capitalize on that and make our own."
Success took its time coming. About
17 years passed before the company turned a penny.
Now it is making a profit, he said.
As Outerbridge Peppers is a private company, wholly owned by Mr.
Outerbridge, sales and profit figures are not public. Mr. Outerbridge did venture to say that the company had
"very nice sales per year now".
Until 1971, Outerbridge Peppers consisted of just the Sherry Peppers in
the shaker bottle. That
year the company introduced a cruet bottle.
Over the past 17 years the company has increased its line to
include mustard, bloody Mary Fix, rum and wine and vinegar peppers as
well as a line of jellies and mild and hot barbecue sauces.
Mr. Outerbridge, who has been selling his products in the US for about
10 years, has been getting a helping hand from an unexpected source.
Several years ago The Bert Woolfe Show, a gourmet cooking
programme, arrived in Bermuda to film.
One of the segments included Mr. Outerbridge talking about his
peppers and how he used them. That particular clip has been shown on CNN several times
recently.
In the early 1980's Mr. Outerbridge hired Iroquois Grocery Distributors
of Stamford, Connecticut, to handle the US market.
The two parted company in 1985.
"I've been doing the food shows myself with my daughter
Elizabeth and wife Betsey," he said.
This year Mr. Outerbridge hopes to get into the prestigious National
Association of Fine Food Makers. The
association does two shows a year for gourmet shop owners.
At present, Outerbridge peppers, jellies and sauces are sold at
140 stores in Bermuda as well as fine food shops in New York City, and
Washington. H.A. & E.
Smith's and Davison's of Bermuda sell the peppers in the American
stores. He tried to move into the Canadian market but government
regulations and customs drove him back, he said.
Mr. Outerbridge also does a healthy mail order business with requests
coming in from all over the US. "One
gentleman called to say that he was desperate.
His last two orders had gotten lost in the mail, he said.
His wife was pregnant and driving him crazy with her cravings for
the peppers. He wanted me
to send him some by courier. |
