Reckon you can handle a bit of chilli heat? EMMA DUNN meets the men who can put your tastebuds to the test.

TOMORROW an innocent shopper will ask Kevin Gover ‘what’s the hottest sauce you’ve got?’

And The Wiltshire Chilli Farm worker, who will be at the first ever Swindon Chilli Fiesta in Wharf Green from 10.30am, will smile and consider his options.

If they’re lucky, he’ll offer them the super hot natural sauces grown and made at the farm in Whitley near Melksham, but if he wants to offer up a real mindblower, he’ll give them one of their homemade ghost chilli sauces.

“When people ask for the hottest we have I rub my hands with glee because I know we have something that can beat everybody,” he said.

“We have just brought out a couple of ghost chilli sauces, which are incredibly hot.

“Even the very hot natural sauces we cook with the chillies grown here are way too hot for me.

“It makes me laugh when they ask for it because I know they’re going to struggle. “We see them get upset and swearing as well.”

Swindon Chilli Fiesta, which is in Wharf Green until 5.30pm tomorrow, will include stalls selling and sampling hot curry, hot sauces, hot dips, spicy snacks and chilli cocktails.

For those who are brave enough, there will also be a chilli eating contest at 3.30pm.

There will be exhibitors from across the country, and among them will be Kevin with the sauces, jams, and chilli grinders produced by the Wiltshire Chilli Farm.

The business was started by chilli lover Jamie Sythes in November 2010 when he planted just 50 chilli plants. Jamie, 36, was tired of only being able to buy a limited variety of chillies in the supermarket, and started growing his own.

Today the farm, which now has five staff, including Jamie, grows between 3,000 and 4,000 plants a year.

“When I started, I had absolutely no idea what I was going to do. I was just growing some chillies. All I could get in the supermarket were red and green chillies but there are 400,000 different varieties. They all taste different and have different heats,” said Jamie, who is a father-of-two.

“I had a tiny little polytunnel with 50 plants and grew them. I tested them at The White Hart pub in Atworth and they liked them. It’s expanded from there.

“It’s our fourth season now and by the end of the year we will have attended about 1,000 days of events.”

Due to the success of the business, Jamie gave up his main job as a business analyst in 2012.

The chilli farm looks more like something you might find in a much hotter climate. Immaculate rows of brightly coloured chillies are lined up in hot white polytunnels, certainly not a sight you would expect just a 45-minute drive from Swindon.

As Jamie showed me around, he picked a few chillies off the plants for me to try.

I started with Hungarian Hot Wax, which measures at 3,000 Scoville Units (the measurement of spicy heat in chilli peppers).

Next, I moved on to the jalapeno, which measures at 5,000 – it lulled me into a false sense of security as I could barely taste any heat.

But when I had a tiny bite of the Ring of Fire, at 30,000 units it certainly lived up to its name. I could barely think of questions to ask about the farm for the next 10 minutes and ended up sipping on a can of Coke to recover – I think it was worse than Jamie had been expecting.

“We’d better not try you with anything hotter,” he said, with a smile.

The hottest chilli at The Wiltshire Chilli Farm is the Trinidad Scorpion, one of the hottest chillies in the world. It’s 1.46 million Scoville Units and made my eyes burn just looking at it.

The chillies are used for sauces, jams and chilli grinders, which are made and bottled on site, and sold at food festivals and farmer’s markets across the country.

“We come up with the recipes here at the farm. They are generally tailored towards the chilli we use in them.

“We think about the flavour of the chilli and figure out what goes with it. We’re experimenting all the time,” said Jamie.

Sauces include Sweet Chilli, Habanero Hot, Hellmouth and The Side Kick.

Their jams include Fireside, which won a gold award at this year’s Taste of the West awards, and they also make and sell chilli chocolate and chilli grinders.

Jamie said people at Swindon Chilli Fiesta tomorrow are likely to be quite daring.

“We get a lot of people at chilli festivals who think they can take the heat. They come over and tell us they eat the Nando’s extra hot sauce. That’s equivalent to our moderate sauces.

“Some people just don’t realise how hot you can actually go,” he said.

“If we’re feeling particularly mean we give them something properly hot. They generally swear a lot.”

Kevin, who formerly worked as an IT manager, said it’s not all about the heat though.

“The range is brilliant because we have got everything from the really mild to the really hot,” he said.

“It’s not just about the different heat with the chillies, there are different flavours too. People don’t get that until they actually start tasting the sauces.

“Come and taste it. If you’re scared of the heat, don’t be. We have got everything from the really mild stuff like our sweet chilli sauce, right up to the super hot.

“I love the flavours we have got in the mild ones.”

If you can’t make it to the Swindon Chilli Fiesta, you can buy The Wiltshire Chilli Farm’s produce at Wood Street Food Hall or Balula’s, both in Old Town. Alternatively, visit http://www.justchillies.co.uk/

  • Swindon Chilli Fiesta is being held from 10.30am until 5.30pm in Wharf Green tomorrow (July 19). Entry is free.