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Marie Sharp's Fine Foods Ltd. better known as Marie Sharp's is a sauce and juice manufacturer based in Belize. The company is named after its founder Marie Sharp and is most known for its habanero pepper hot sauce. The brand offers numerous sauces of varying heat, most blending carrots, vinegar and onion with crushed habaneros. Marie Sharp's products are widely available in restaurants and stores throughout Belize.
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History
The company is privately owned by Marie Sharp, who began locally selling sauces on her 400-acre farm outside Dangriga in 1981. In 1985 a factory was built to meet the growing demand, also serving as a popular tourist destination. The product was the first commercially successful agricultural product manufactured in and exported from Belize, under the name of "Melinda’s Hot Sauce". Once the market for the product had been established, the distributor who was marketing the sauce, trademarked the product name, effectively cutting Sharp out of her own business. After a five-year struggle, Sharp gave up the name to Melinda's in exchange for being released from her exclusive contract with the distributor and re-branded the product under her own name. Distribution has since expanded from Belize to much of Central and North America, Europe, Asia and Australia. In 2013, Sharp's entries at the Anuga Food Fair in Cologne made the prestigious "Taste13 Showcase" round and placed in the top three products at the world's largest food fair. In 2014 Marie Sharp's sales totaled $3.8 million. In 2016, the founder was inducted into the Hot Sauce Hall of Fame. The company also introduced their newest pepper sauce, inspired by Alaskan smoked products, "Smokin' Marie's", a smoked habanero sauce.
Jelly and jam
In 1982, finding that the farm had surplus fruit, Sharp visited local markets to get ideas of what products she and other farmers might be able to produce to increase their sales. Discovering that all the commercially produced jams, jellies and marmalades were manufactured from non-tropical fruits, she recognized an opportunity. Experimenting with recipes, Sharp developed a product with higher fruit content than the US Food and Drug Administration required and began marketing her natural products made without preservatives. Marie Sharpe’s produces eleven types of preserves which are marketed locally and internationally.