Pepper Joe's - An Incredible Story

News for Immediate Release

Spring/Summer 1999

Norristown, PA

69 year old "Pepper Joe" was lured out of retirement by his family to offer his rare and unusual hot pepper seeds by mail order. So what's so unusual about that? THAT WAS 10 YEARS AGO! Now he's staring down the barrel at 79 years old and there's no end in sight.

The robust, energetic Pepper Joe is introducing his 1999 catalog featuring new varieties of hot peppers including the "Hot Lemon Pepper" and the "Giant Serrano. His standby collection has the beautiful "Bolivian Rainbow Pepper" and the very naughty "Peter Pepper" called the "most pornographic pepper" by Organic Gardening Magazine. This unusual catalog has a Pepper Joe heat scale that rates hot peppers from a #2 (for sissies) to a #10 (nuclear!). But Pepper Joe's major focus is organic. "No pesticides and no chemicals go on my produce. I garden the way mother nature intended. My peppers and tomatoes are nutritious and healthy, loaded with vitamins and minerals. Produce from supermarkets and most farms cannot compare." The funny thing is that he's established almost a cult following across the nation.

Now Pepper Joe is going global. At the persistence of his son, Joe Jr., there is now a Pepper Joe website. It features "pepper-postcards" with dancing hot peppers (one hot pepper even blows you a kiss) that you send free to other hot pepper enthusiasts. These pepper-postcards are quickly becoming the new rage on the internet. "I don't know anything about computers" says Pepper Joe, "but I know a lot about hot peppers, organic gardening and cooking." Still, the Pepper Joe phenomenon seems to have taken on a life of its own.

When this geriatric wonder is asked what's next he gets a sheepish grin: "I have a cookbook we're working on and I'm considering opening an organic fruit and vegetable stand in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina...."

For more information, contact us!

Pepper Joe may be available for phone or personal interviews.

(Also, Articles are available for publication on Gardening and Chiles)