Marie Sharp | |
---|---|
Born | 1940 (age 82–83) |
Nationality | Belizean |
Occupation(s) | educator, pepper sauce manufacturer |
Years active | 1981-present |
Known for | Marie Sharp's pepper sauces |
Marie Sharp (born 1940) is a Belizean entrepreneur most recognized for her internationally known habanero-based pepper sauces. Prior to opening her own firm, she worked as a teacher and as an executive secretary for the Citrus Company of Belize. Since 1981, she has been producing pepper sauce and in 2016 was inducted into the Hot Sauce Hall of Fame. She is the founder and owner of Marie Sharp's Fine Foods Ltd.
Marie Sharp was born in 1940 in Belize City in British Honduras. Her parents were originally from San Pedro Town on Ambergris Caye, but moved to Belize City shortly before her birth. The couple separated when she was eight years old, and Sharp moved with her father to Dangriga, because of the schooling opportunities. In San Pedro, most schools taught only Spanish, but in Dangriga, she quickly learned the Garifuna language and attended school where English was taught. [1] Graduating from high school in 1958, Sharp passed her Senior Cambridge Exams. [2]
Sharp began her career as a teacher, working in various elementary schools for six years. For the ten years following, she served as an executive secretary of the Citrus Company of Belize. [2] Her second husband was a farmer, and his family owned a 400-acre farm, Melinda Estates Limited. Sharp would spend spare time at the farm and plant various crops that grew well in the country. She originally planted chili peppers for a hot sauce manufacturer who took only a small amount of her habanero peppers. To prevent them from spoiling, Sharp grated the peppers and made barrels of pepper mash. [1]
Working during the day for the Citrus Company, Sharp experimented with various vegetable combinations to make hot sauce and gave them away to friends. At their urging, she began to manufacture the sauce [1] and in 1981, began Marie Sharp's Fine Foods. [2] Her first product was called "Melinda's" after the farm owned by her husband's family. For ten years, she worked to build the brand, [1] expanding into jams, jellies, and marmalades made with tropical fruit. [3] In 1988, with the help of the Belize Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the United States Agency for International Development, she attended Clemson University, studying food packaging. [2] Sharp found a distributor in the United States and began to market the product internationally. It was the first Belizean-made export product to gain wide acceptance and the only habanero-based sauce on the market at that time. In a marketing move, the distributor filed a trademark on the name. [1] [4] When Sharp found out in 1991 that the distributor had trademarked her product, she hired a lawyer. Because of the cost involved, travel constraints and the fact that as her sole distributor she could not work, Sharp eventually gave up the name to her sauce in exchange for a release of her contractual obligations, [1] after a five-year struggle. [5]
Though the situation required that she start over with new branding, Sharp re-branded with her own name that same year. [1] In 2000, the Government of Belize facilitated her completing a course on food processing in Honduras at Zamorano Pan-American Agricultural School. Sharp also took a course on business management with the Belize Institute of Management and several courses on marketing and manufacturing practices in Jamaica and Barbados. [2] Sharp was contacted by a distributor for a major superstore and began exporting her products to U.S. markets in 2003, though she refused to sign an exclusive distributorship arrangement. [1] The arrangement brought her products, which were already available in Central America to all North American markets. [2] Soon after, she was approved to do business in Japan and her Japanese distributor contracted to take the product to other parts of Asia, Europe and Oceania. [1]
Her products known as Marie Sharp's have been widely recognized. She received the Gold prize in the 20th Food and Beverage Competition of Düsseldorf, Germany. [1] In 2013, her entries at the Anuga Food Fair in Cologne made the prestigious "Taste13 Showcase" round and Sharp's sauce placed in the top three. [6] In 2014, she was honored by Belize's Special Envoy for Women and Children as a woman trailblazer. [2] Sharp was inducted into the Hot Sauce Hall of Fame in 2016. [7] In June 2017 Mrs. Sharp's Products won twice golden awards in 2 out of 3 categories at the German Chili Award in Hanover/Germany.
Sharp has been married twice. Her first husband, with whom she had three sons, died of cancer. She remarried, and her second husband brought his seven children, two girls and five boys, into the family. Three sons work in various aspects of Marie Sharp's Fine Foods. [1]
Belize is a small Central American nation, located at 17°15' north of the equator and 88°45' west of the Prime Meridian on the Yucatán Peninsula. It borders the Caribbean Sea to the east, with 386 km of coastline. It has a total of 542 km of land borders—Mexico to the north-northwest (272 km) and Guatemala to the south-southwest (266 km). Belize's total size is 22,966 km2 (8,867 sq mi), of which 22,806 km2 (8,805 sq mi) is land and 160 km2 (62 sq mi) is water.
Ambergris Caye, is the largest island of Belize, located northeast of the country's mainland, in the Caribbean Sea. It is about 40 kilometres (25 mi) long from north to south, and about 1.6 kilometres (1 mi) wide. Many parts of the island have been modified by human development since the arrival of coconut plantations in the 17th century, but it remains largely white coral sand with mangrove forest at its center. Its eastern coast runs parallel to the northernmost stretch of the Belize Barrier Reef, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
There are several ports of Belize through which boats enter.
Dave's Gourmet is a company notable for creating and introducing Dave's Insanity Sauce, which formerly held the title of "world's hottest sauce." The sauce is widely distributed through gourmet hot sauce boutiques and online hot-sauce sites.
Hot sauce is a type of condiment, seasoning, or salsa made from chili peppers and other ingredients. Many commercial varieties of mass-produced hot sauce exist.
Capsicum chinense, commonly known as a "habanero-type pepper", is a species of chili pepper native to the Americas. C. chinense varieties are well known for their unique flavors and many have exceptional heat. The hottest peppers in the world are members of this species, with Scoville Heat Unit scores of over 2 million. Some taxonomists consider them to be part of the species C. annuum, and they are a member of the C. annuum complex; however, C. chinense and C. annuum pepper plants can sometimes be distinguished by the number of flowers or fruit per node – two to five for C. chinense and one for C. annuum – though this method is not always correct. The two species can also hybridize and generate inter-specific hybrids. It is believed that C. frutescens is the ancestor to the C. chinense species.
The Belize Elections and Boundaries Department is the hands-on administrator of Belizean electoral politics. It was established in 1989 as a subordinate to the Elections and Boundaries Commission.
Belizean cuisine is an amalgamation of all ethnicities in the nation of Belize and their respectively wide variety of foods. Breakfast often consists of sides of bread, flour tortillas, or fry jacks that are often homemade and eaten with various cheeses. All are often accompanied with refried beans, cheeses, and various forms of eggs, etc. Inclusive is also cereal along with milk, coffee, or tea.
Mole, pronounced Spanish pronunciation: [ˈmole], from Nahuatl mōlli, meaning "sauce", is a traditional sauce and marinade originally used in Mexican cuisine. In contemporary Mexico the term is used for a number of sauces, some quite dissimilar, including mole amarillo or amarillito, mole chichilo, mole colorado or coloradito, mole manchamantel or manchamanteles, mole negro, mole rojo, mole verde, mole poblano, mole almendrado, mole michoacano, mole prieto, mole ranchero, mole tamaulipeco, mole xiqueno, mole pipián, mole rosa, mole blanco, chimole, guacamole and huaxmole.
Sir Barry Manfield Bowen was a Belizean bottling magnate, politician and entrepreneur. His business interests included Bowen and Bowen, Ltd, which was founded by his father, and is the exclusive bottler of Coca-Cola products in Belize, as well as the Belize Brewing Company, which brews Belikin beer. Bowen also served as a former member of the Senate of Belize and the financier of the People's United Party. In December 2007, Queen Elizabeth II knighted Bowen as a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George.
The 2010–11 Belize Premier Football League is the highest competitive football league in Belize, which was founded in 1991. There were two seasons, the opening and the closing. In 2011, the Belize Premier Football League withdrew from the Football Federation of Belize and all remaining games were abandoned. Thus no winner was crowned for the closing season.
Renfro Foods, Inc. is a privately owned, award-winning food producer of salsas, sauces and relishes, including 30 Mrs. Renfro’s products, located in Fort Worth, Texas. Founded in 1940 as the George Renfro Food Company, Renfro Foods is now owned and managed by the second and third generations of the Renfro family. Its products are sold in the United States, the Caribbean, Canada and the U.K.
General elections were held in Belize on 4 November 2015 to elect members of the House of Representatives. On 28 September 2015 Prime Minister Dean Barrow announced that he had advised the Governor-General to dissolve the National Assembly and to fix Wednesday 4 November 2015 as the date for the next general elections.
The habanero is a hot variety of chili. Unripe habaneros are green, and they color as they mature. The most common color variants are orange and red, but the fruit may also be white, brown, yellow, green, or purple. Typically, a ripe habanero is 2–6 centimetres long. Habanero chilis are very hot, rated 100,000–350,000 on the Scoville scale. The habanero's heat, flavor and floral aroma make it a popular ingredient in hot sauces and other spicy foods.
Rosita Baltazar was a Belizean choreographer, dancer, dance instructor and founding assistant director of the Belize National Dance Company. In 2004, she was awarded the Lord Rhaburn Music Award as a dance ambassador and in 2009 she received the Chatoyer Recognition Award from the National Garifuna Council of Belize for her efforts at preserving Garifuna culture.
Marie Sharp's Fine Foods Ltd., better known as Marie Sharp's is a plant-based condiment and jam manufacturer based in the Stann Creek District of Belize, Central America. The women-owned company is named after its founder Marie Sharp and is highly regarded for its authentic Caribbean, carrot-based habanero pepper sauce recipe. Marie's Belizean habanero pepper (hot) sauces consistently rank among the world's tastiest and most beloved condiments.
Ann-Marie Williams is a Belizean public policy advisor, administrator and former journalist. After spending over two decades as a reporter, Williams became the first Executive Director for the National Women's Commission of Belize. She serves as a governmental advisor to the legislature and executive on issues impacting women. She was honored with the US Secretary of State's Women in Public Service Award in 2011.
Destiny Evelyn Wagner is a Belizean author, television host, digital influencer, model, and beauty pageant titleholder who was crowned Miss Earth 2021. She is the first Belizean to win the Miss Earth title, and the first to win one of the four major international beauty pageant titles.