Chilies
Ashley Foods has been locally growing peppers for seven years. We started working with UMASS Amherst in 2013. Frank Mangan from the UMASS experimental farm, was instrumental in procuring the best seeds from Trinidad then creating a farm plan for us. The test crop was grown on about 3/4 of an acre and the yield was 2,500 lbs of Trinidad Moruga Scorpion peppers.
The first picking was used in our Mad Dog 357 Scorpion Pepper Hot Sauce and the rest were frozen. When we had the peppers tested using the HPLC method they came in at 1,008,000 Scoville Heat Units (SHU). This was the hottest pepper to date that we have been able to use on a large scale.
