Hot like dat!The Moruga Scorpion brought the heat but the Moruga Red is taking the market

Trinbagonians love pepper. We put it on just about everything, from doubles to pelau to cheesepaste sandwiches. So it’s not that hard to believe that we can boast one of the world’s hottest—the Trinidad Moruga Scorpion. Its name alone warns you to be careful.

Back in 2012, New Mexico State University’s Chile Pepper Institute officially named it the hottest on earth, measuring an average of over 1.2 million Scoville Heat Units (SHU), with individual pods soaring past the two-million mark. It held that title globally for about a year and a half, while drawing international attention to local farming communities.

In November 2013—one year later—the Carolina Reaper officially entered the ring when American pepper breeder Ed “Smokin’ Ed” Currie took the Guinness World Record crown. Developed by crossbreeding a La Soufrière pepper from St Vincent with a Naga pepper, the Reaper hit an average lab-tested reading of over 1.6 million SHU. That record stood for a decade until October 2023, when Ed Currie’s Pepper X officially dethroned it with an average SHU of 2.69 million.

The economic cost of a missed opportunity

Agricultural economist Dr Omardath Maharaj states that the Moruga Scorpion is more than a very hot pepper; to him, it is actually a case study in the economic value of provenance.

Trinidad and Tobago, he believes, had an extraordinary opportunity to build a globally recognised geographical identity around a product whose name itself points to the rural community of Moruga and whose reputation became international. “We should also be precise about what we missed on that occasion. A geographical indication would not have given us a patent over the pepper, nor prevented farmers elsewhere from cultivating the plant. Rather, it could have protected the use of a geographical name for products meeting defined standards and genuinely connected to the designated territory.” He says the distinction matters to a community and country seeking internationalisation, agricultural tourism, export agriculture, as well as rural economic and livelihood options.

Trinidad and Tobago already has legislation providing for geographical indications (GI), which the Intellectual Property Office defines as signs identifying goods whose quality, reputation or characteristics are essentially attributable to their geographical origin.

“A well-designed GI, supported by certification, traceability and producer standards, could therefore have allowed our farmers and processors to capture a premium from authenticity while strengthening the export identity of the product. It could have supported fresh-pepper exports, pepper mash, sauces, dried products, extracts, and a stronger commercial platform for legitimate, quality-assured planting material.”

The irony is that the world did not wait for T&T. Scorpion peppers and products marketed with local associations have found their way into international cultivation and seed markets, while CARDI itself has documented the distribution of purified Scorpion seed throughout the Caribbean and has had to warn about confusion and mislabelling in the commercial seed trade.

“The important lesson for our wider agricultural sector is that being the place where a product originates is not the same as being the place where most of its value is captured.”

However, all is not lost. The opportunity now is to build an authentic Trinbagonian value chain around what we can still differentiate: certified planting material, defined production standards, traceability, quality testing, geographical branding and reliable supply to export markets.

Maharaj says farmers would benefit from a stronger premium market, while processors could move past the traditional model of seeking to export raw agricultural commodities or sauces and condiments built mainly on imported raw materials. Ultimately, he stresses that “the goal should be to make Moruga Scorpion mean something more commercially powerful than simply ‘very hot’ and which will allow farmers, entrepreneurs and processors to capture a meaningful share of the value.

The rise of the Moruga

Red Pepper

There is now a dwindling local market for the Moruga Scorpion pepper because it is simply too hot for everyday use, leading to production on a much smaller scale.

“Even doubles vendors want the Moruga Red pepper instead of the Scorpion,” explains Ricky Ramcharan, a farmer from Cunupia with over 28 years of experience.

Echoing similar sentiments is Nawas Karim, operations manager at Karim’s Farm and a farmer with two decades dedicated to growing peppers, who learned the craft from his father, Nazimul, and Marcus Mycoo.

“I’m mostly known for growing hot peppers,” he explains. “The two varieties are the Moruga Red and the Moruga Scorpion. The Scorpion is a variety that I grew earlier in my career, probably about 15 years ago. We eventually discontinued production because we strongly believe that it is a variety best suited to niche markets and, in particular, to small and medium-scale farmers, who we believe are the backbone of the agricultural sector. We chose not to compete with them, so we decided to move in the direction of producing the Moruga Red.”

Karim adds that the Moruga Red is far more versatile than its sister variety, easily serving local and export fresh markets as well as commercial processing—making it a much better fit for their business model.