Discover GUSA™ · Fermented chilli mash
Chilli mash.
Born in Rwanda.
Exceptional chilli mash starts with exceptional freshness. Our peppers move from harvest to mash to fermentation here at the source.
Follow the story01 — WHY HERE MATTERS
Picked today.
Fermenting today.
For our mashes, growing and processing in Rwanda matters for one immediate reason: freshness. The clock starts the moment a pepper is picked. Harvesting and mashing at source means fermentation can begin while the peppers are at their freshest—not two days later, after a journey to somewhere else. Rwanda's extraordinary ingredients become bold, distinctive flavour right here, in the soil and climate that grew them.
CHILLI MASH EXPLAINED
What is
chilli mash?
Chilli mash is fresh chilli fruit milled with salt and allowed to ferment naturally. Unlike a thin, finished hot sauce, it is a concentrated cooking ingredient with the pepper's natural flavour, acidity and heat at its centre.
Explore each mash below for its ingredients, character and serving ideas.
Build flavour into sauces, marinades, stews, dressings, glazes and condiments.
Processing the peppers where they grow lets fermentation begin while they are at their freshest.
03 — THE GROWERS
One origin.
Three farms.
Every pepper comes from one part of Rwanda's Eastern Province. Some are grown on FITA's own farm; the rest come from two carefully selected outgrower farmers who are regularly audited against our standards.
One variety. One origin. One unmistakably Rwandan chilli mash.
to fermentation
04 — GROWN HERE. FERMENTED HERE.
Time is an
ingredient.
natural fermentation
Natural fermentation is a technique we have refined and perfected over the past 15 years. The chillies are harvested at the source, combined with salt and left to ferment naturally. Time and naturally occurring cultures transform the fresh peppers into something deeper: concentrated heat, bright acidity and the rich, rounded flavour that makes fermented chilli mash so different from an ordinary pepper purée.
Produced in Rwanda with a light electricity footprint, using renewable electricity where needed and LPG for most processing energy. From field to fermentation, the value remains where the story began.
05 — THE HANDS BEHIND THE HARVEST
Grown together.
Led by women.
GUSA™ is not only about what we grow. It is also about how—and with whom—we grow it. Our agricultural workers are paid substantially above prevailing local wages. We deliberately create opportunities for women, who make up all our weeding and harvesting teams and are closely involved in planting the crop.
The women helping to grow and harvest GUSA™ are reflected in the company that leads, owns and shapes its future.
06 — THE WILD HEART OF OUR FARM
Land we chose
not to cultivate.
Beside the cultivated fields, this land has been allowed to return completely to the wild. Agave, mango, cactus and imiyenzi now grow freely, creating habitat for wildlife and a permanent area of carbon-storing vegetation.
A farm should be judged not only by what it produces, but also by what it chooses to protect.
07 — ONLY THE BEST OF RWANDA
Heat with an origin.
Flavour with a purpose.
GUSA™ Scotch bonnet chilli mash is deliberately simple, but the story behind it is not. It is one chilli variety grown in one Rwandan region. Audited local farmers and fairly paid workers. Women planting, harvesting, leading and owning. Natural fermentation, Rwandan energy and a piece of wilderness left to flourish beside the fields.
GUSA™. Grown here. Fermented here. Only the best of Rwanda.08 — DISCOVER THE MASHES
One origin.
Discover the flavour.
The story finishes where the flavour begins.
Our mash range is being updated. Contact us for availability.