A pepper-jelly sandwich, please
A GINA Feature, November 16, 2004
Do you like the hot and spicy flavours? Would you be willing to try a pepper jelly?
If the answer is yes, The person to contact is Bibi Andrews, a producer of hot and tantalizing flavours—honey flavoured pepper, roasted garlic flavour, lime, and now pepper jelly. She also produces a variety of achars.
Mrs. Andrews left school at 13 and at 50, she completed a course at the University of the West Indies in Trinidad and Tobago . It was here that she acquired the scientific knowledge to make her pepper based products.
Speaking with the Government Information Agency, Mrs. Andrews credits her success to hard work, EMPRETEC and the support of family and friends.
Bibi was forced to leave school at a young age to take care of her sick mother. With little education, she was however determined to make ‘something' of herself.
Married now for 31 years to a farmer and a mother of three boys, Mrs. Andrews is determined to provide for her sons the things she did not have as a child, such as a proper education.
Mrs. Andrews started out selling peppers. She has a farm at St. Cuthbert's Mission up the Mahaica River . The pepper was being sold at around $5 per pint and was definitely not enough for the Andrews family.
Using the one product she had plenty of –pepper-- Mrs. Andrews would make pepper sauce and achars for her friends and family, who were not ashamed to ask for a second or third bottle for friends of theirs.
It was here that the idee was born, to turn her talent for producing pepper based products into a business. She was already selling a few bottles, but Mrs. Andrews needed to expand her little business.
A course with EMPRETEC opened up the opportunity she was waiting for.
According to Mrs. Andrews, it was Hilton Forde of EMPRETEC who saw in her something she did not see in herself—the ability to establish and manage a business of her own.
Forde arranged for Mrs. Andrews to attend a course in food production where she learnt the quality demands of food production and about pepper based products, especially the pepper jellies.
Today, Mrs. Andrews is sharing her knowledge with women across the Region. She recently completed a course with women in Montserrat and, through the Rural Women's Network of Guyana and the Caribbean Network of Rural Women's Producers, she plans to share her skill with women in Guyana and more of the Region.
She produces most of her products at week-ends and also finds time to rear chickens and ducks that she sells to earn a little extra cash.
In time for the Christmas season, her products will be available at MFT Trading.
So when you go looking for that something to add that hot flavour and more to your pot or sandwich, look for Bibi's pepper-based products.
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