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Out of Africa

SOUTHERN AFRICA IS AN "IT" DESTINATION FOR ADVENTURE TRAVELERS—AND EATERS. Its high-end safaris offer glimpses of the wild kingdom while five-star meals whet appetites with flavorful and spicy local ingredients. Consumers' exposure to these flavors and the increasing availability of related products are making ingredients from southern Africa hot commodities in the U.S.

“In response to the consumer, distributors and retailers across the country have begun adding an African set to their international offerings,” says Jim Thaller, president & CEO of Talier Trading Group, Inc., a specialty food marketing company that focuses on products from the developing world. “Africa is truly the last frontier for the specialty food industry, and what an exciting and gorgeous frontier it is.”

The growing enthusiasm around Africa’s ingredients and cuisines is also creating employment opportunities that improve the quality of life for many of the locals. “One can’t talk about African specialty food products without being acutely aware of the social and economic impact this newly found interest is bringing to the people of Africa,” notes Thaller. “For Africans, playing a role in today’s global marketplace is far more important than simply receiving aid packages. Trade is what they are looking for, and organizations like USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development) are working hard to make that dream a reality.”

The Ultimate Crossover
Several of the indigenous ingredients found in the southern region of Africa are more familiar than specialty food buyers may think. Take the PeppadewTM, for example, a South African fruit discovered ten years ago and the newest flavor to dress up potato chips for mainstream manufacturer Tacquitos. “It’s the ultimate crossover into the U.S. market when a flavor makes it on a potato chip,” notes Ingrid White of International Executive Services Corps (IESC), and manager of its USAID-sponsored Africa Fast Track Trade (AFTT) program, which promotes export success, economic growth and prosperity of selected countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (see sidebar, p. 70).

“The response we have received from buyers who have tasted the products in the African pavilions at the Fancy Foods Shows over the past three years has been overwhelmingly positive,” says White. “Many people expect the flavors of most African foods to be extremely hot or unappealingly exotic. But they try them and are surprised that the foods and flavor combinations are actually quite approachable.

“Not all the foods our pavilion exhibitors offer are what one traditionally associates with the continent. Yes, some of the products are hot, but others are unique in their texture or play with unexpected ingredient combinations, such as lime and chilli.”

With more than 50 countries, thousands of cultures and nearly 800 million people, it’s no surprise that Africa has so much to offer the specialty food world. Here are some of the indigenous ingredients from southern Africa that already have made a mark in the U.S.—and are turning the region into the next exciting territory for the specialty food industry to explore.

Marula
Touting four times the vitamin C content of oranges, the wild marula fruit has the potential to become a popular, healthful choice for American consumers. A member of the mango family, this small, round yellow fruit is grown in South Africa and has a tart-sweet guava-like taste. It is also high in potassium, calcium and magnesium. Rather than picking the fruit off the trees, it’s allowed to fall to the ground to ripen there. Rumor has it that when the fruits are lightly fermented, the smell causes elephants to feel intoxicated.

Best known for being used to make Amarula, a creamy liqueur found at most major liquor stores in the U.S., the marula is also used in ice cream, made into jam and, most recently, used to flavor beer.

Swaziland’s Eswatini Swazi Kitchen, a first-time exhibitor at the 53rd Summer Fancy Food Show in New York last July, exports marula jam to Europe, the U.S., Australia, the U.K. and Asia. Other items in the company’s line include a range of 100 percent natural jams, marmalades, chutneys and sauces made from African fruits and vegetables.

Like many African specialty food companies, Eswatini’s business is tied with giving back to local communities and helping stop the spread of disease. The company began as an income-generating project to provide employment for disadvantaged rural women in Swaziland and to provide a market for small local farmers and producers.

Eswatini sources all of its fruit from local rural growers, which includes the families and women who pick the wild marula. Women in remote mountain villages weave the company’s gift baskets from Lutindzi grass. Wooden spoons for the gift packs are carved by a local group of disabled adults, who work from home after attending a rehabilitation center for two years where they learn the carving skills. A portion of Eswatini’s profits support youth programs for street children and orphans. More information can be found at www.eswatinikitchen.co.sz.

Bird’s Eye Chilli
A visual triumph, the Bird’s Eye Chilli, a relative of the Tabasco pepper, grows standing up in parts of southern Africa, including Malawi, Zimbabwe and South Africa. As many as 500 tiny shiny bullet-shaped red peppers can grow on one plant. Although small, they are known for being among the hottest types in the
world (many are exported to Thailand where they’re used to spice up curries and other dishes).

Bird’s Eye Chilli was called by settlers as Peri-Peri (translated to “chilli chilli” in Swahili), a name it’s become know as in specialty food circles. A company that is spearheading the popularity of Peri-Peri is Nando’s. Since 1987, it has developed from a small South African café to a franchise that now operates 700 fast-casual restaurants in 34 countries offering chicken marinated in its Peri-Peri sauce, which is spicy with a tangy, lemony, earthy robust flavor.

Nando’s introduced Peri-Peri sauce to the U.S. in 2001 and has found that brand recognition helped educate consumers about this flavorful condiment, which can be classified as Afro-Portuguese cuisine. “There are a lot of chilli heads out there who are into as hot as you can get, but we’re not selling that. We’re selling a very flavorful sauce that lets you taste the flavor of the food first and then hits you with spice,” says David Rock, president of Nando’s U.S. headquarters in Orange County, Calif. “The key to the sauce is in the combination of Portuguese flavors of lemon with the South African chilli. It’s a cultural experience and combination.”

The company uses its success to help prevent the spread of malaria, which is estimated to kill more than 1 million unprotected children each year, and results in the loss of more than $12 billion a year in productivity in Africa. Nando’s sponsored a ten-day trip to Lagos, Nigeria, last August, led by celebrity chef and TV personality Clayton Sherrod and Kingsley Holgate, a humanitarian, author and explorer who is spending the year traveling around the coast of Africa distributing mosquito nets. Joined by local volunteers, the group distributed 5,000 malaria-preventing bed nets to pregnant women and endangered children living in the malaria-infested rural villages around Lagos. Nando’s is sending other U.S. chefs on other legs of the trip, including Wilbert Jones, Marvin Woods and Warren Brown, and will host fundraising events in the U.S. to raise more money for nets. Throughout the remainder of 2007, Nando’s will donate ten cents for every bottle of its Peri-Peri Sauce and Marinade sold worldwide for the purchase of thousands of additional bed nets.

Rooibos
Rooibos is the Afrikan word for Red Bush Tea, an herbal brew grown in South Africa that has a reputation for its healthful properties and is known in some circles as the “Miracle Tea.”

Grown only in the Cederberg mountain high desert in South Africa, Rooibos tea is strongly affected by the terroir, with the pure mineral water, mountain air and hot sun changing the leaves from verdant green to the mahogany red that Rooibos is known for.

Sold as loose and bagged tea, Rooibos is sweet and naturally caffeine-free and low in tannin. Loaded with antioxidants—five times more than green tea—Rooibos’ list of positive health attributes includes helping in the prevention of certain cancers; an aid for insomnia, irritability, headaches, nervous tension and hypertension; and anti-spasmodic agents, which can relieve stomach cramping and colic in infants.

The hottest new trend involving Rooibos is Red Tea Espresso, combining the health and café cultures. Born out of an ex-coffee junkie’s penchant for espresso, South African farmer and entrepreneur Carl Pretorius created this red shot of saffron-colored “espresso” by putting Rooibos tea directly in an espresso machine. This range of red espresso-based drinks has no caffeine, preservatives or colorants and is healthy and satisfies a craving for an intense cup of brew. Ten times stronger than Rooibos tea from a teabag, red espresso can be made into lattes, cappuccinos and iced tea.

Peppadew
As recent as a few years ago, consumers were responding with “peppa who?” when introduced to the Peppadew, the first new fruit to debut since the kiwi some 30 years ago. Today, it’s emerged as the darling of the specialty food industry. Recently, Good Morning America host and celebrity chef Sara Moulton chose Strohmeyer & Arpe’s Peppadew Potato Chips from South Africa as one of her favorite items at the Summer Fancy Food Show.

Peppadew fruit—which resembles a cross between a miniature red pepper and a cherry tomato—was discovered in 1997 by farmer Johan Steenkamp while he was working in his garden in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. Once he found this bush with hundreds of little red fruits on it, he did some research and discovered that it was a new species of plant.

The spicy yet sweet-piquant pepper’s current popularity shows no sign of slowing down as it’s being made into salsa, hot sauce and Bloody Mary mix, infused into and stuffed with cheese and used as a flavoring for snacks.

Peppadew’s popularity has helped transform the previously disadvantaged community in Africa’s Tzaneen area, where Peppadew International (Pty) Ltd. operates a production plant, by providing thousands of jobs to locals.

Vanilla
Although not indigenous to Africa—it reached Europe in the 1500s courtesy of Spanish explorers returning from Mexico and made it to Madagascar by the mid-1800s—vanilla is a valuable ingredient cultivated in southern Africa, particularly on the island of Madagascar, which is said to produce the majority of the world’s supply. Vanilla prices have been in the news in recent years, with African and Indonesian vanilla (the second-largest producing country) vying for the same market space. Farther north, Uganda has increased its market share in recent years due to Madagascar’s crop failure in 2000. Nonetheless, Madagascar keeps its worldwide reputation for producing the highest-quality bourbon vanilla.

Vanilla, the only orchid that produces an edible fruit, is difficult to grow and requires hand pollination. The pods must be air- or fire-cured and fermented for six months to develop their vanillin content. The result is the shriveled brownish black, oily pods. The flavor profile from each country varies: Bourbon vanilla pods from Madagascar have a creamy, rich flavor.

Vanilla remains a perennial flavoring favorite in the U.S. According to Chef Kjed Petersen of Wild Plum Catering & Fine Foods, LLC, Portland, Ore., who explores key menu trends across the U.S. projected to bring growth to the specialty food producer and retailer markets, it is number four of the Top Ten Traditional Flavors on menus. (Peri-Peri, or Bird’s Eye Chilli, made the Top Ten New Flavors list at number 8.) Retailers can incorporate vanilla in prepared foods ranging from baked goods to pasta sauces or chilis where it helps cut the acidity of tomatoes or enhance spicy flavors.

The Magic of Africa
“Africa is a magical place for many reasons, from its diverse cultures to the warmth of the African people,” comments Thaller. “The range of products coming out of Africa today far exceed anyone’s expectations. With beautiful packaging and exotic flavors, U.S. consumers are ready and willing to embrace the continent’s delicious cuisines.”

Denise Shoukas is a contributing editor to Specialty Food Magazine.