Brooks Pepperfire Foods was incorporated in the spring of 2004 and has met with extraordinary success. In high demand at the One of a Kind Christmas and Spring Craft fairs in Toronto, and at the prestigious Salon des Metiers d'Arts de Quebec in Montreal, the Nova Scotia Designer Craft Council shows, Signatures Originals Craft Shows and Circle Craft in Vancouver, Brooks Pepperfire Foods is making enormous inroads to making Peppermaster brand a household name as the champagne of pepper products across Canada.
In April 2004 the company moved into its corporate headquarters in Rigaud, Quebec and In the fall of that year, Tina Brooks joined the company to handle marketing and sales, developing new markets and sales opportunities. BPFI opened their market stall at Finnegan’s market in Hudson Quebec.
An investment partnership with the BDC in 2005 injected $90,000 in production line capabilities. The kitchens were upgraded allowing the company to begin co-pack and private label operations.
Brooks Pepperfire Foods began an exploratory marketing thrust into the US. They presented the Peppermaster(tm) brand line of products in the Canada Pavilion at the New York Fancy Foods Show in July 2006. In December, BPFI presented the Peppermaster line at the Chicago One of a Kind Show.
In January 2007, Brooks Pepperfire Foods announced the launch of US marketing operations and presented their products at the San Francisco Fancy Foods Show. US explorations confirmed that in order to infiltrate the US markets, BPFI would have to organically certify their products. Shortly thereafter, BPFI was given a mandate by TransFair Canada to create the market for Fair Trade certified chili peppers. March of 2007 saw BPFI launch the Pepperfire Initiative which brought the first in a series of fair trade certified products to market through a tri-partite agreement with supplier Oxfam Equita of Montreal. Having once been fair trade certified, the next step for BPFI is to obtain their organics certificate.
BPFI was contacted for research purposes for the pending release independent film The Great Chicken Wing Hunt. In August 2007, BPFI staged a music festival to raise awareness for Fair Trade to be used as footage in the film. With the support of the Municipalite de Rigaud, headliner Alan Gerber played to an intimate crowd. The film’s anticipated release in 2008 will include a premier on Rigaud’s open air film.
Greenland Corporation of Las Cahobas Haiti began growing goat peppers for BPFI in the spring of 2007 and in July, the first fairly traded chili peppers were imported. Fair Trade certification is currently pending for these chillies.
In December 2007, Greg Brooks was invited to appear on the CBC program Test the Nation as part of a panel of Canada’s top 30 Chefs. The program aired on January 21, 2008.
