Meet Michel, Who Has Been Cooking This Since 2007

Michel Franken started making hot sauce in 2007, in small batches, from fruit and peppers grown on the island. Nearly twenty years later he still develops every flavour himself.

That is unusual, and it is the reason the range does not taste like a committee designed it. The papaya is sweet because he decided it should lead with fruit and let the pepper follow a beat later. The habanero is built around roasted red pepper and garlic rather than around heat alone. Somebody made those calls, and he is still here to be asked about them.

It also means the recipes move. A batch that is not right does not ship. That is easier to do when the person who wrote the recipe is the person tasting it.

If you want to meet him, he gives the factory tasting himself, Tuesday to Friday at ten.