With the Jamaica Observer Food Awards 2013 slated for Thursday, May 30, we have reached that time of year when the judges commence their weekly meetings to discover, taste and discuss what’s new in Jamaica’s food industry. However, the work of the food award judges has never ceased, as all year round they have been on the lookout for nominees in the various categories of the competition.

Over the next month, Thursday Life will be showcasing new food items produced in Jamaica, hoping to find a worthy successor to the Jamaica Observer Food Awards 2012’s winner of ‘Best New Food Item’, which was The Gourmet Touch’s Mushroom & Cherry Soup, created by Vanessa Harper. Harper, recently reflected on her win:

“I felt a bit like Cinderella for a moment, and I was gobsmacked, I suppose, as I’d only just entered the market in December 2011, a few days before Christmas. So I certainly didn’t think I’d win an award,” she continued modestly. “In fact, I took part in the event to expose myself. That being said, it was such a nice feeling to be recognised so quickly,” she concluded.

Harper told Thursday Life that about 70 per cent of her client base is the expat community. So even though she won the prestigious award last May, most of said expats “tend to disappear at the end of June, so sales slowed up for the entire summer holidays”. However, “overall, last year was great for sales, and after winning the award, people came up to me while I was doing promotions in MegaMart, recognising that I had been in the Jamaica Observer,” she said proudly. “The entire experience was a growing curve for me as a person, as well as for the business,” explained Harper, “but the economy is a killer, and the cost of my raw materials has gone up. I can’t increase my price, as people won’t buy, and The Gourmet Touch is essentially a luxury item as it is. People now buy what they really need, items like milk, bread and eggs, so as a result, I have now seen a downturn in sales this year. Well either that, or they don’t like my product – but I hope that’s not the reason,” she quipped.

Still feeling very “green” in the food industry, Harper “would like to keep The Gourmet Touch going, despite the climate,” she insisted. “I have never done this before, so I lack the experience of what to do next,” she admitted, “but I am going to wait and see what happens this year, and perhaps change a few of my items, and launch a new Jamaican-style soup,” she revealed.

Hoping to join the ranks of The Gourmet Touch, is Roger Lyn, marketing manager at Rainforest Seafoods for its ‘Rainforest Ready’ burgers – which have been selling in leading Jamaican supermarkets for the last four weeks. These include Spicy Beef Burger, 100% All-Beef Burger, Seasoned Beef Burger, and a snapper Fish Burger, each selling at an average of $354, plus GCT, per pack of four.

“The product is all about convenience,” Lyn told Thursday Life, “and just as it says on the packet, it really only takes three minutes, on each side, of cooking in an oiled pan.”

Lyn, who has been working at Rainforest Seafoods for nine years, informed us that “we have been giving thought to the concept of convenience food for a while. Customers would ask us if they could get the fish scaled, and then they asked if they could get it cooked. This showed us that there was indeed a market for quick and convenient food.” As a result, the multimillion-dollar processing plant has been in the making for the past two years, and now Rainforest Ready Burgers has produced “the closest thing to a home-made burger that you can get,” boasted Lyn. “There are no ‘fillers’ in our burgers,” he claims, “and it’s all about a lovely juicy bite,” he concluded last week when Thursday Life interviewed him at Rainforest’s Slipe Road headquarters.

Craig Powell, owner of Backyard BBQ, is another food entrepreneur like Vanessa Harper – but with years of meat and barbecue experience – who has his eyes set on adding an award from the Food Awards to the one he won at the Jack Daniel’s Birthday BBQ Bonanza for being 2012’s Grand Champion. The very recipes he used to win the competition are the ones he has continued using in order to produce “meat seasoned with a barbecue sauce, slow cooked in a smoker, vacuum-packed and ready-to-eat retail line, where you buy and heat in your microwave or in a pot of boiling water,” explained Powell. “The line includes spare ribs, which come as a whole rack, half rack or quarter rack; chicken by the quarter; rib tips; pulled pork; and jerk barbecue rabbit – which is the only meat we don’t put in the smoker, but grill it,” he continued. All of Powell’s meats are seasoned with a southern barbecue-type rub, which contains dried spices like cumin and paprika.

Powell told Thursday Life that his prices will be comparable to what roadside jerk goes for, and plenty of care goes into his cooking. “The ribs cook for about four-and-a-half hours, and the pulled pork for 12 hours, all at 250oF on a smoker, which is an ideal temperature for smoking.”

Of course, the ever-ambitious Powell doesn’t just have one line in the making, but is also proud to present Jamaica Rabbit Ranch. Powell, who was running a pig farm in St Elizabeth, has been thinking about ‘growing’ rabbits since 2009, but the climate was too hot down there, so when he moved to the cooler climes of Stony Hill, he decided it was time. “Also, everyone is getting more health conscious, and rabbit meat has little cholesterol and fat,” he told Thursday Life. Powell started the operation nearly a year ago, and “now I have 250 to 300 rabbits in stock,” he said. “We kill about 100 rabbits a month, when they reach three months old. Any older and they start to become sexually mature, producing a musk in their glands that causes them to taste rather gamey,” Powell squirmed. “Rabbit should taste a little like chicken, but it is a slightly sweeter meat,” he added.

Powell’s rabbits are sold as whole frozen carcasses, including the liver, kidney and heart, weighing between 2 1/2 and 4 pounds per carcass. Each pack is vacuum-sealed, and Powell suggests customers go to Facebook for recipes: www.facebook.com/jamaicarabbitranch or email him at jarabbitranch@gmail.com

“My favourite ways to cook rabbit are to either grill it with jerk seasonings or cook it as you would an oxtail stew with spinners. Now that is delicious,” he smiled.

Jamaica Rabbit Ranch is sold in mainstream supermarkets, as frozen carcasses, and cooked at Toscanini, Tower Isle, and a jerk centre in Red Gal Ring in Stony Hill called Road House Jerk. “I also sell the whole frozen carcass at $700 per pound for the whole carcass, and will deliver anywhere in Kingston,” Powell concluded.

Thursday Life’s search for new food items continues next week. Until then, do go to your local supermarket and support these new Jamaican products.