Carry On Friends: The Caribbean American Experience
Carry On Friends has an unmistakable Caribbean-American essence. Hosted by the dynamic and engaging Kerry-Ann Reid-Brown, the podcast takes listeners on a global journey, deeply rooted in Caribbean culture. It serves as a melting pot of inspiring stories, light-hearted anecdotes, and stimulating perspectives that provoke thought and initiate conversations.
The podcast invites guests who enrich the narrative with their unique experiences and insights into Caribbean culture and identity. With an array of topics covered - from lifestyle and wellness to travel, entertainment, career, and entrepreneurship - it encapsulates the diverse facets of the Caribbean American experience. Catering to an international audience, Carry On Friends effectively bridges cultural gaps, uniting listeners under a shared love and appreciation for Caribbean culture.
Carry On Friends: The Caribbean American Experience
From Queens to the World: Bringing Caribbean Flavor with West Indies Pepper Sauce
As a first-generation Guyanese American, Randy Pulayya's journey from the vibrant streets of Richmond Hill, Queens, to over 60 countries, has uniquely shaped his entrepreneurial vision. In this episode, Randy shares his experiences living in Southeast Asia and the curiosity he encountered about Caribbean culture, drawing fascinating parallels between Caribbean and Asian culinary traditions.
Randy takes us behind the scenes of building West Indies Pepper Sauce, shedding light on the complexities of entering major retail markets like Walmart and Whole Foods. He talks about the financial challenges, such as slot-in fees and cash flow management, while discussing his motivation to share cultural heritage through this flavorful venture. His story is a testament to the power of community support and maintaining a strong Caribbean identity amid the hurdles of scaling a premium brand.
Celebrate with us as Randy and his wife, Shauna, launch an initiative to increase Caribbean brand representation in local stores. This venture not only showcases their dedication to cultural storytelling but also highlights the resilience and innovation required to thrive as entrepreneurs. Randy's admiration for the cultural narratives behind each brand is evident, and he encourages us all to embrace our heritage with pride and passion.
Connect with West Indies Peppa Sauce: Website | Instagram
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A Breadfruit Media Production
Hello everyone, Welcome back to another episode of Carry On Friends the Caribbean American experience, and I'm excited about you meeting my guest today, Randy. Randy, welcome to the podcast. How are you feeling?
Speaker 2:I'm feeling good, Carrie. I'm very happy to be here today.
Speaker 1:Awesome. So why don't you tell the community of friends a little bit about who you are, caribbean country you represent and the work you do? Awesome?
Speaker 2:So a little bit about me. Randy Pelaya, born in Richmond Hill, Queens, New York, so the heart of the Caribbean community, right Little Guyana If you're not from the New York area, that's what we call it. A little bit about myself, is been around the world, been to 60 countries, six continent. Proud first generation American, been around the world, worked for a lot of Fortune 100 organizations and today we're here to talk about our company, West Indies Pepper Sauce, that my wife and I recently launched this year, getting ready to do some big things All right before we get into West Indian Pepper Sauce, talk to me a little bit about what it was like growing up in Richmond Hill, little Guyana, and your experience as a first-generation Guyanese American.
Speaker 1:Tell me about how that was for you.
Speaker 2:I love it. This is a question that is near and dear to my heart, right, because you don't know where you're going unless you know where you're coming from. So I grew up in Queens Richmond Hill. In Richmond Hill, it used to be a very Italian neighborhood back in the day. My dad immigrated from Guyana to Brooklyn in the late 70s and hopped over to Queens Richmond Hill in the early 80s 70s and hopped over to Queens Richmond Hill in the early 80s, growing up in New York City. In Queens, everybody's from everywhere. Right Between Queens and Brooklyn, 170 languages are spoken. All scents, all background, all types of cultures reside there. I remember as a child I'm 40 right now as a child, there would always be the Labor Day parade. There would always be some type of event celebrating our communities, and our communities was not only Guyanese, it was Trinidadians, jamaicans, st Lucia, grenada, haiti, puerto Rico. It's representing everyone. Haiti, puerto Rico it's representing everyone. So my representation in my childhood of New York was very much culture and it's very nostalgic to this day.
Speaker 1:You mentioned that you've traveled all over the world. You've been to most of the continents, most of the continents. Which country or countries you felt like when you showed up and you were representing Guyana, they were just like, oh wow, Like they really loved not only your Guyanese heritage but Caribbean culture on a whole. Which country did you say like, really leaned into, like, oh my God, I'm so excited. Tell me more.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, that's a solid question there. So we spent, my wife and I Shauna she's the co-founder of West Indies Pepper Sauce as well we spent about five years living in Asia, so one year in South Korea and four years in Vietnam. So the region that really connects with me outside of the Caribbean is Southeast Asia. So I think Vietnam is in that bucket, thailand is in that bucket, singapore, malaysia those are the big areas of people were very curious. Those are also a lot of the regions where people are really curious Wow, guyana, where is that from? So there you got to, as we all know, carry on right. What is the Caribbean? What is the West Indies? You got to go back and everybody you meet is a big history lesson, right, but they're very, very, very much connected and intrigued about our people. They know a little bit about us, right, they know a little bit about the ingredients, but they don't know the whole pepper pot.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. Throughout your trip in Southeast Asia, right? Did you find similarities to your? You know Guyanese Caribbean culture and was any of that like a catalyst or a starting point for conversation? You know, for many people who may not be fortunate to travel in those areas, sometimes it's not easy to see commonalities. So did you see any of that while you were in Asia?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we moved out there to teach English, right. So Shauna was mom, she's Vietnamese American, she was adopted. That was kind of and we're both proud first generation Americans. When we tell our family, hey, we're leaving the States to go live overseas to teach English, people are like what, oh my gosh, why? And then, as we jumped into it to answer your question was on the weekends we would go to the markets, right, jump on our motorbikes, go to the market. And we went over to Vietnam to learn, learn about the culture. My wife's mother was adopted as a refugee so I told her like, like, it's important for us to learn about the culture and learn about the language. So we started speaking vietnamese, so we're basic conversational vietnamese.
Speaker 2:As we would go down the market, carry on, and I would go and get my spinach right, or I'd get my potatoes, or I'd get my fish right, or chicken and get all of the herbs and coconut and all that. So I started to realize all of the ingredients that they have out. There is what we have in the Caribbean, the West Indies, right, everything from soursop, mango, guineap, I mean starfruit guava, it's just down to the bones or so. But one of the things that really just set me off was you know, we use a lot of coconut right in our curries and a part of our cultures across the region.
Speaker 2:The way they had data is actually great. The coconut reminded me culturally of my grandma, right, and it's not only my grandma, it's all of our grandmas in the Caribbean, the West Indies, right. So it's very nostalgic that sense of community around food. And as you go to different region in Thailand, in Singapore, malaysia, reggae is big right, people know reggae, they know dancehall. My nickname growing up was Reggae Randy. It still is to this day, right. So I would always be intrigued about people and their music selection and how they learn about reggae and what was that influence beyond, right. So hopefully that answers that question.
Speaker 1:I'm happy to you know, dive in deeper yes, it answered my question and I want to know reggae Randy need to pull a tune right now. What's the tune reggae Randy going for?
Speaker 2:now you're putting me on the spot. So listen, I love chronics, you know I love. I love barris, I love dancehall, I love coffee from the west indies. So you know I'm not, I'm not a singer and all that so, but you know, I me. What was the impetus for that?
Speaker 1:What was the reason that you've decided, shauna, we're going to start this business. And she's like, yes, babe, we're going to do it, so talk to me a little bit about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is Karianne. This has been truthfully speaking. This has been a long time in the making. This has been truthfully speaking. This has been a long time in the making. So my background is e-commerce logistics. I used to work for DHL Express UPS. I used to bring brands to market and expand across the domestic and global market and Sean has very much background as a marketing director leading that brand image in direction of that.
Speaker 2:So I used to make pepper sauce, you know, for my friends and family in a regular jar and give it out to my family and friends and when they start tasting that they're like, wow, this is fantastic, can I get some more? I used to grow it out of my garden and I still do. But, carrie Ann, it's such a small yield of pepper sauce that you can make right. We started last year, last, uh, last summer, shauna and I decided to create west indies pepper sauce. Um, you know, got a lot of inspiration from our family, my brother-in-law and sister-in-law. They're out of northwest arkansas. They're the ones who really helped push, push this and pushed us to start this company we launched in February of this year and, truth be told is I've been laid off from my job for about four and a half months. Sean has been laid off from her job for the last month and a half and Carriene, we have worked at Fortune 100 organizations, working with decision makers, working with all types of brands.
Speaker 2:And you know, I love pepper sauce, I love food, we love to cook. We cook a very good Vietnamese-Chinese combination type of food. You know, in the space of pepper sauce it's limited, right. You've got a few options. You know Big Up to Grace, right? Can't Disrespect. You know Bertie's. You know from Trinidad, can't Disrespect. You know Walker's from Jamaica, santa's all day, every day. Right, but coming from the US market, this is where it really hits the soul, right, because we've been around 60 countries, six continents. We pushed ourselves to go do that. We came from no money. My dad was a construction worker. Shauna's mom, when she came into the States from Vietnam as she grew up, she was working in factories.
Speaker 2:We look at the products on the shelves, all the premium products out there. They have all different types of cultures. So when you get into the hot sauce section, carrie-anne, you just see a lot of companies that take a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and I don't want to use the word tiefen, but I want to be very real. They're taking a lot of our culture. So, first and foremost, west Indies pepper sauce. We are premium brand in the hot sauce market. In the industry people don't look like us. They don't have our brand story. They don't have our jars. Our jars and the whole basis of West Indies pepper sauce is to educate consumers of all walks in life about the Caribbean and the West Indies, about all of our people and the contributions that we continue to do.
Speaker 2:So. We're six months old. Out of Orlando, we're doing farmer's markets. We're getting ready to rock and roll. Things happen for a reason, carrie. We got a four and six year old. We're getting ready to rock and roll. Things happen for a reason, carrie. We've got a 4 and 6 year old. They're involved into this. We get love vibes from people across the board. No-transcript.
Speaker 1:You know, randy, you said something and you know, being in the entrepreneurship space, you know you'd see, like how much pepper sauce you need, right, but if we go into the supermarket and you walk the shelf, you see how many pepper sauce in there that doesn't necessarily represent Caribbean culture. So the you know, the more options, the better. So I want to focus on the pepper sauce a little bit Now. You said that you started with the stuff from your garden and you would, you know, bottle it and the yield so, talk to me about scaling the different farmers markets.
Speaker 1:And two, you know, you know if you are big cook, you know cooking a small pot of rice and peas is very different from cooking a big pot. So when you're dealing with bulk and volume, there's a quality concern that most people have. So talk to me, how are you managing all these different elements and changes that will inevitably happen as you expand and grow?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, that's I like that question. So, yeah, you know, started, you know, for the last 20 plus years making it from our garden, right, just go to the store, get some different types of pepper and just make our pepper sauce. As we started for West Indies pepper sauce, our intention was never to just be small, not only to be in a West Indian Caribbean market and that's that right. We're selling it to some folks. We wanted to bring it to scale, to market. So the first things first was, I mean some Guyana, right? So in Guyana there's two types of pepper we're pepper which is a unique pepper from Guyana, and then in Guyana we call it balafaya pepper, aka scotch bonnet big enough back to Jamaica, right, scotch bonnets from Jamaica, right?
Speaker 2:So as we started this journey, we wanted to see who are the players out here, right, where are people sourcing the products? And our goal is to be in specialties retailers, the sprouts, the whole foods, the Wegmans, the premium specialty markets. We have five ingredients scotch bonnet, cucumbers, turmeric, salt and vinegar. So our largest supplier is our pepper supplier. We source our scotch bonnets from costa rica and, non-gmo, we source our cucumbers locally. So that's not going to be a challenge, right? The biggest challenge is getting getting those scotch bonnet peppers right and having that brand consistency. Whether it's jar number because we have it in a jar right, whether it's jar number one to jar number 10,000, it all looks the same. We're vegan, non-gmo and gluten-free, and what a lot of people tend to say is when they taste it they say you know what? I haven't had pepper sauce like that in a long time. It reminds me back to my childhood. It reminds me back from when my granny used to make that or so.
Speaker 1:Now, when we think of local, are you shipping? Like, what does shelf life look like? Because, again, I know you've done logistics but, like when it comes to food, the logistics thing set up very differently. So how are you managing, like you know, maintaining the shelf life when you have to ship it and all of these things? Talk to me a little bit about that and maybe some of the challenges, unforeseen challenges that you've run into so far.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the shelf life is one year, right? So, from a production perspective, as soon as our products are made, we have that one year shelf life, we tell people to open up the container and then put it in the refrigerator. Our average customer finishes their bottle of pepper sauce in 32 days. With regards to like unseen challenges, I think where we are right now as a brand, as we're getting ready to scale, is making sure that we have the right resources right. So you just can't get into a Walmart or a Whole Foods or a Wegmans just like that. You have to kind of go through a food broker. Once you go through those food broker, you have to pay X amount of dollars in order to have an opportunity there, and that's when they'll start pitching these brands. So I think a challenge would be making sure know, making sure that we have enough capital to pay.
Speaker 2:All of you know those food brokers. This is an expensive game. We don't come from it. We jumped into it. We are here and we're about to make things happen, but I think that's going to be a challenge from a food broker perspective, you know, making sure that we have that capital to pay those slot in fees. And the slot-in fees are how you get into these groceries and then making sure that you're not going to get paid then, and there you might have 30, 60, 90 day net terms. I think the challenge would be managing finances as we scale. Our eye is to be across the US and once we're finished across the US, we already got a lot of love and support from Canada and the UK and you know there's a lot of interest out there. So it's about understanding how it all works together and we're working with a lot of brands who are going through this journey outside of the pepper sauce space. So we have our resources.
Speaker 1:That was a question that I was going to ask because on this entrepreneurial journey so we have our resources, because there's a lot there, and I've gone through layoffs myself but was the layoff the impetus for the scale, or were you already in process and the layoffs just accelerated the scale, or scaling it to where you are now or what you're trying to do now?
Speaker 2:Yeah, things happen in life for a reason, right, and if you have your eyes closed and you don't see what's happening in front of you, you missed that opportunity.
Speaker 2:So, as we were building this out in the background, working off full-time jobs and raising two kids under the age of seven, started applying for jobs and, to be real, we would go out through our referrals, our community, our networks, and you know I wouldn't get called back, I wouldn't even have an opportunity, with all of my experience, as well as Sean's experience, to have that opportunity to interview or so.
Speaker 2:And so I would allocate X amount of you know, maybe like two hours a day working on WIPs and another, you know, two hours working on, you know applying for roles, and then then another you know, two hours planning and you know, after a certain time it's been four months for me. I said we've had so much success, carry on from a local farmer's market and shipping nationwide people resonating with our brand and our brand identity and our mission I decided to take this full time, jump in head first. Right now we're dotting our I's, crossing our T's, making sure that we have everything in place to start scaling, and we want to scale not everywhere, we want to be very intentional because first things first is we're $15 a jar for our pepper sauce. We're in the premium space of hot sauce and we're not just selling pepper sauce. We're selling our culture, not only from Guyana, trinidad and Jamaica, st Lucia, we represent in all of our regions.
Speaker 1:What about your full-time roles For your wife, shauna? It's clear. What are the skills there that you're leveraging for WIPS right now to help you navigate this new venture?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so in Vietnam. While we lived in Vietnam, we taught English and we also had a sourcing business. We were manufacturing dresses.
Speaker 2:We have no background into that right, and it goes to the life saying right, those who live or learn the most. You have to be comfortable being uncomfortable. That's how you live and learn, right. So we know a little bit about production and source and input and things together, making sure our price points are where they're at Strategic relationships, that strategic perspective that you know, know really just having a roadmap of where we want to be, having a strong sense of brand identity, right. So at wisteries pepper sauce, with my experience with sean and myself, we want to focus on three things we want to create a great product, we want to have a great user experience and then we also want to have a message that is compelling. So, with my experience working with top brands, working with decision makers, working with some of the household brands that we all use day in, day out, I understand some of their challenges. Right, we understand, you know, what are their challenges and those are things that we're also just utilizing to our advantage as we grow. West East Pepper Sauce.
Speaker 1:Again, not to harp on the layoff, but I think there's some lessons there that you can help convey to the audience. So someone's listening, they have a full-time job. The audience so someone's listening, they have a full-time job. What is one or two lessons that you've learned from this transition of looking for a job being laid off and you're like you need to make a decision? What's a lesson or two that you feel like you can share with the audience about navigating the space or preparing, you know, because you never know anyone who might be in this position at any time. So any lessons that you've learned that you want to share.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is something that you know. I kind of asked myself along the way, and it's great to self-reflect. The two lessons that I tend to take away, or I would offer, would be it doesn't matter who you are, what you do, what you believe in be authentic. You got to be authentic. People could smell it if you're not. So we're doing this as our authentic selves. And the second thing would be celebrate the small wins, day in and day out. Right, you have to look and celebrate those wins, right, and if you fail, that's an opportunity to learn. And if you're not learning from your failure, you're not going anywhere, right? So you have to be genuine and be authentic and celebrate those small wins.
Speaker 2:With regards to, like the layoffs, man Kerrian, it's so tough for so many people out there. My heart goes out for everybody, right, and I don't pity ourself with regards to what's happening right now. We are taking something as a negative, turning it into a positive, and we are going to move forward. Carrie Ann, I refuse, I refuse to give up because, in our short span of doing this, I want to go back to the pepper sauce Brands. Don't look like us. They don't have our story, they don't have our product and we are all about representation, about jumping into this space.
Speaker 1:Entrepreneurship is a viable option, but we also have to make sure we're messaging it that it's the reality of that option. It's not easy, right? It requires a lot of things. You have a spouse, that you're working together, you can support each other. That looks very different for other people, so I really appreciate that you are sharing and you're vulnerable about that and your experience. So, um, when it comes to the pepper sauce, mega asked the the very important question that caribbean people want to know what's the scale of pepper like? Is it or hi it hot? Like, do you have different jars that cover different levels of heat, or is it like one spice for everybody?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we do have two jars, right. So we have our six ounce jar West Indies pepper sauce. This is five ingredients scotch bonnet peppers, cucumbers, turmeric, salt and vinegar. So the red pepper sauce, which we're going to be giving a name shortly. It has a citrus undertone. So on a scale from zero to 10, when we use a little spoon to give out samples, I'd say it's about a six out of 10, based on a little drop. Servant size is a teaspoon.
Speaker 2:So for me, I like a lot of pepper sauce. Right, our pepper sauce is not going to burn. It's not going to burn your butt. That's not what we're going after. So it's flavorful. It's flavorful. It is going to help enhance your food.
Speaker 2:But there's a lot of culture in here, right, not only gyneculture, but from the whole west indies, in the caribbean right, the red has a bit of a citrus undertone. The the yellow, same ingredients. It has a bit of a, a tangy undertone and from a spice level it's still that six out of ten perspective, right, a A little bit gives you that six. And how it normally goes is, once you have a teaspoon or you have a bit of a taste on it, whenever we do it at the farmer's markets. It kind of goes up a little bit and it's just hanging there and then it's going down and it's at the back of your tongue.
Speaker 2:And our saying is based on customer feedback is we're addictive without the additives, so we're vegan, we're non-GMO and gluten-free. This is five clean ingredients here, so hopefully that kind of answers that question. If you want it hotter, all you do is, instead of one teaspoon, you just do two teaspoons. And if you do more than two teaspoons, man, wow, that's, that's going to be some, that's going to be some trouble, but that's that's kind of like from the perspective. This is, this is flavor, flavor for your food.
Speaker 1:Wonderful. Before we wrap up, what? What do you want people to know about you? West Indian pepper sauce, where they can find it and where is it available. All of that good stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, first and foremost, our website is shopwipscom. So shopwipscom, we're on Instagram, tiktok, facebook. Our handle is at shopwhips, where you can just search West Indies Pepper Sauce. So we're on those platforms and we're also on Amazon. So if you are in the Central Florida market, in the Orlando market, we do a lot of farmer's markets right now. We did this one big event in Miami Soka Food Wine Fet with Vanessa James, who is very much in our community, who is celebrating so many of us and really talking about the Caribbean diaspora. So we're doing a lot of events right now and we're online selling nationwide. But the next tier is we're working on to jump into, especially retailers across the US.
Speaker 1:Wonderful. Well, randy, congrats to you and Shauna for starting this initiative, wishing you both success. We need more Caribbean brands and a variety of Caribbean brands in our local stores and, like you said, it's representing our culture. Every brand, every brand that's out there, has a different story and each story just is, it's just additive to what our culture represents. Right, all the different ways. So, thank you so much for being on the podcast. And any last words before we sign off.
Speaker 2:Thank you for the kind words. My last words would be Kerri-Ann, I've learned about your background, about who you are. You know, being a Brooklyn native, representing, you know, 100% Jamaican. I love what you do for our community At West Indies Pepper Sauce. It's not about me or you know all the West Indies and Caribbean people, or so. It's about celebrating every day people from the Caribbean and West Indies making an impact day in and day out. So thank you for what you do because you give us all a platform and, at the end of the day, representation. It will always be important, so you'll big up yourself.
Speaker 1:Thank you, randy. Let me tell you, randy, you know this is real selector talk. I'm just kidding, you see. You see the way you're flowing. Mr Yaman Yaman, I see it, I see it. Thank you so much for you know, coming on the podcast telling your story. I hope someone is encouraged, I hope someone recognizes, if they're in a layoff, that there is opportunities that they could try. You know, like it's not the end, you know, and that's what I got there's, there's always something to try, something to do, and in the process of doing and trying that, we're bringing our culture and our stories. That's what I got, you know, from what you're saying. Wherever you go, you know, whatever you're doing, your culture all up in there, you can't take it away. So, and that is what we're about here on Carry, on Friends. So thank you for coming on sharing your story, letting everybody know a little bit more about who you are and, as I love to say at the end of every episode, walk good.
Speaker 2:I respect love.
