America.gov (Washington, DC)

Julia Panford shows off her company's pepper pastes. "We are looking for an importer to bring it here to the U.S. market to sell," she says.

New York -- For most people in the United States, foods from the countries they or their grandparents once called home are available in specialized ethnic markets. In many cases, the cuisine has gained a wide appeal, and Americans of all backgrounds buy French cheeses, North African couscous and Indian spices in their supermarkets.

So how can a food producer from Ghana, which has only a small expatriate community in the United States, reach the taste buds of 300 million Americans? Maybe by offering a twist on one of America's favorite foods.

Americans spend about a billion dollars a year on jars of Mexican-style salsas -- the often-spicy mixtures of chopped tomatoes, onions, garlic and chili peppers that they scoop up with cornmeal tortilla chips. The Ghanaian alternative is pepper paste: green with unripe peppers, red with ripened ones, sometimes supplemented with tomato and often seriously hot. "Like salsa, but this one is from Ghana, and you know Ghana pepper is very spicy and very good," said Julia Panford, an enthusiastic marketing executive with West-West Agro-Processing & Farms, based in Mpohor/Wassa East District in southwestern Ghana.

Panford came from Ghana to New York for the summer 2010 Fancy Food Show, which filled the vast Javits Convention Center with food producers from throughout the United States and around the world. They displayed their wares to the importers, distributors, restaurant suppliers and supermarket executives who decide what American shoppers will find on store shelves and what they might see on restaurant menus.

"We are not in the U.S. market. That's why we are in this show: We are looking for an importer to bring it here to the U.S. market to sell," Panford said of West-West's pepper pastes. The company was one of several from sub-Saharan Africa at the food show. Such participation was facilitated by the Competitiveness and Trade Expansion Program (COMPETE), sponsored by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). Begun in 2000, AGOA is a U.S. government initiative that helps expand U.S.-Africa trade and investment, promotes free markets, stimulates economic growth and assists sub-Saharan Africa as it integrates into the global economy.

Panford said pepper pastes are a staple ingredient of Ghanaian cuisine. "You can use it just as spices, like spices," she said. "And this one, the medium one, we have garlic in, we have a little tomatoes in, and we have also green pepper in. This one is very good: You open it and you eat it. You can eat it with rice. You can eat it with your french fries. You can eat it with spaghetti. The only one you have to add is just your chicken and put it in the microwave for some few minutes, then you're good."

To encourage people to taste the pastes, though, she had set out samples with tortilla chips. "I know that in the U.S., they like the sauce with these chips, but in Ghana we don't normally use, we use it with stews, soup, meats, et cetera. We cook it in the food," Panford said.

"In America, here, you guys eat with the chips, but I have tried, and it is good -- very, very good."

Panford said people's reaction to the pepper paste was as positive as her reaction to the tortilla chips. "At first I thought you [Americans], you don't like hot spices, but I tell you, they are eating this hot, eh? They like it, they like it," she said. "When they come, they try it. They say, 'Oossss!' But still they love it. Some people go around and come back and taste it again. They love it.

"They are asking: 'Is it in the market? Is it in the store? Ey, my god, how can I get this in to buy in the store?' That's why we are here: We need an importer to bring it in to the American market."

By the end of the show, Panford said, two importers had expressed interest in the pastes, as had many distributors and retailers.

"We will contact them. We will talk to them. We will be online with them," she said. "If everything goes well, then [they] can import it."

Be the first to Write a Comment!

Copyright © 2010 America.gov. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.

AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.