AS A young woman, Sheila Hope-Harewood learnt how to make preserves but didn’t do much with the knowledge until her retirement when she used it to make some money.
Shemar’s Organic Products is her small outfit which makes preserves, condiments, hot sauces, pickles, chutneys and sauces.
When Sheila retired as a nurse in England and returned to Barbados, she planted herbs and vegetables on her land and when she had a surplus she would make her assorted products.
“Because it was a relatively big garden I always had the intention of selling some of the crops, but I did not think I would be making the products to sell,” she said. She has tried to contain her output because she does not want her cottage business to take over her retirement.
“I am 65 years old and I am comfortable at the point I am at right now and really looking for relaxation, not work,” she said.
Shemar’s is just something to keep her mind occupied and bring in a little cash.
Sheila said that while trying to ensure that what she does remains enjoyable, she was constantly experimenting, testing and developing her recipes.
She has had to do some research online to supplement the knowledge she acquired all those years ago at the Girls’ Industrial Union. But she remains determined to put a Barbadian twist on all of her products so that when visitors to the country purchase them they get an interesting taste profile.
“I had a lady last year, her husband was here for cricket and she gave him a picture of the hot sauce told him to go back to Holder’s Market and buy some for her. He bought ten bottles of hot sauce for her and she was very happy,” Sheila said.
Her products include a kale pesto, old-fashioned hot sauces, garlic pickle, honey mustard dressing, pumpkin seed butter and seasonal chutneys. What is special about her hot sauce is that she makes it with horse radish and green pawpaw, she said.
Garlic pickle is among her most popular offerings and can be used as a marinade.
“I used to work in Saudi Arabia and there they use a lot of pickles but theirs would have prunes and dates, and lot of raisins and onions but I took the recipe and modified it to suit what we have here,” she said.
In addition, her pumpkin seed butter is popular with the health-conscious.
The organic products are preservatives-free are not available in supermarkets. Sheila makes deliveries or she is available at the Barbados Association of Retailers, Vendors and Entrepreneurs (BARVEN) Outdoor Market and Holders Farmer’s Market. Therefore, she said her products were a bit more expensive than what you would find in the supermarkets because the shelf life is about a month.
She said that every week, she made batches of 24 of most of the products and they go very quickly.
To ensure the consistent quality of her products, Sheila said she grew almost all of what she uses; among them mustard plants, red oak lettuce, arugula, horse radish, kale, coriander and hot peppers.
“Once you are organised in how you do your crop rotation it is very easy to have crops ready for reaping,” she said.
She said farming did not have to be the hard work that many people thought it was; daily cleaning and maintenance made it light work, except for during the rainy season.
In addition to her preserves and condiments, Sheila also has developed some detoxes. The former nurse said she was always a health fanatic and conscious of what she ate, so making healthy products always came easy.
“Knowing how cancer works, the way people eat and knowing things that you can put together to help clean the blood and the liver, it was quite easy,” she said.
