Carol Hay in her backyard pepper patch

Carol Hay, Cayman’s home-made pepper jelly purveyor, says she has always been an avid gardener.
Carol’s late father, Colin Duncan, was a landscape architect/horticulturist who studied at the famous Kew Gardens in England.

“I picked up a love and knowledge of plants from him. As a teenager growing up in Cayman I would work weekends and holidays with him on his various landscaping jobs. To this day I can’t pass a plant that’s seeding without pinching off a few pods – a habit I picked up from my Dad,” Carol said.

Prior to coming to Cayman in 1973 Carol grew up on a farm in Jamaica, so her love of planting things runs pretty deep.

Carol’s growing pepper jelly business sprang from a hobby and developed out of bereavement.

Carol said, “For the last four years I have been researching and experimenting with various pepper jelly recipes. Around Christmas 2006 I thought I had perfected it and was ready to take it to the next level. Then my Mummy died in March 2007 and that threw me for a loop.”

To keep her mind off her grief, Carol plunged into pepper jelly production.

She said, “In order to keep busy, I was making pepper jelly morning, noon and night … and I went full throttle into production; ordering 6,000 jars and labels and securing outlets that would take my product.”

“Then in June last year,” she continued, “local peppers went to almost $10 a pound and that threw me into another mode; that of a farmer.”

Carol now has about 45 pepper bushes of varying species. Fittingly, Carol has named her venture “Pepper Patch.”

She refers to her growing business as her “hobby gone mad” and juggles it with her full time job as office manager for BrittHay Electric. Saturdays and Sundays are spent tending to her backyard pepper patch and making the pepper jelly. She can make 36 10-ounce jars per week.

Carol has a unique way of marketing her product. She makes huge sample trays and delivers them to local offices.

Rosa McLean, DoT’s Manager, National Promotions & Events said, “Carol brought in her pepper jelly along with cheese and crackers for the Department of Tourism staff to taste and ended up selling a case on the spot! We also bought some to include in our welcome bags and baskets as the pepper jelly is the perfect gift for visitors to take back home with them. I strongly recommend that everyone try this – it tastes amazing!”

Carol’s tasty concoction is the result of a tedious time-consuming process, which is not without its unique dangers.

She recounted some of her adventures: “When making it I have resorted to wearing a mask and snorkel so the pepper fumes don’t knock me out! Because I do it in the kitchen at home, my house stinks of scotch bonnet peppers all the time. Only last week I turned my back for one second and the whole pot bubbled over on the stove. It took me all weekend to scrape the crystallized sugar from every nook and cranny of my kitchen.”

Carol’s pepper jelly is not only a gourmet product but comes at a gourmet price-- retailing for CI$20 a jar. As someone who has gobbled (I mean sampled) her product, I would have to say it is well worth the price thanks to its home-made taste. It is much more concentrated and flavourful than mass produced pepper jellies.

As for the future of her venture, Carol said, “I am growing the company very slowly because it is not my intention to mass produce the jelly. Right now I am stockpiling my pepper jelly on my dining room table. I see it as something to do when I retire and then I will have more time to market and promote it.”

Although taking things at her own pace, Carol is serious about her pepper jelly.

She said, “My husband asked me the other day what I wanted for my birthday – I told him a plot of land in East End where I could farm and tend to peppers all day. He laughed … but I wasn’t joking!”

Carol’s Pepper Patch gourmet pepper jelly is available at Fosters’, Kirk Supermarket, Hurley’s, Pure Art Gallery and various gift shops around Grand Cayman.