Making Haitian food was a side job for this Greenville PhD schoolteacher. Now it's a fulltime job.

GREENVILLE — On a Wednesday inside the commercial kitchen at Feed & Seed, Kelly Desmangles is multitasking.

She’s making her now-popular Hatian slaw, Pikay, while also tutoring a student in math. Mind you, the tutoring is virtual, but still Desmangles’ ability to move back and forth from one thing to the other is quite impressive.

She carefully measures her cabbage and carrots before adding them to a giant mixing bowl. Next, she adds a large container of her blend peppers and vinegar, the crown jewel of the pikay, which is her version of the traditional Haitian pikliz.

“Hang on, she said,” putting her headphones on to address a question from her student.

While Desmangles quit her fulltime job last year to lean completely in to her specialty food business, Pickled Pepper People, there is a reality to entrepreneurship: Building a business is not seamless and it takes time.

While other countries' cuisines have found some success breaking into the American palate, Haitian cuisine remains somewhat unknown, Desmangles said. But it’s got a lot to offer.

Desmangles is building her business one jar of Haitian slaw at a time. Her version of the traditional Haitian condiment, pikliz, is now sold in stores and markets throughout the Upstate and in North Carolina. Her hope is to grow her company’s footprint and also to grow her offerings.

“We want to rival Goya,” Desmangles said, referring to the well-known Hispanic foods company. “We were like 'if those other companies can have lots of products, so can we. Why not?'”

Food as cultural ambassador

Desmangles was born in New York City, but grew up in a Haitian enclave in Brooklyn. Her mother cooked mostly Haitian meals. Desmangles recalls the flow of Griot (a special roast pork), rice and beans, plantains and yuca, and vegetable stews.

Pikliz was also always on the table. The spicy cabbage slaw is used more as a condiment, imparting a tangy, spicy flavor to any dish.

“There were so many ways where I just like anyone else wanted to fit in,” Desmangles said of being caught between American and Haitian culture. “But my culture was very different so we didn’t eat the same things. When all the other kids were eating McDonalds french fries, we were eating rice and beans.”

But as she grew older, Desmangles found a deeper appreciation for both the culture her parents tried so hard to maintain and the food.

When she began cooking for herself, she naturally gravitated toward the Haitian dishes she loved as a child. In the cooking, she found connection and also a way to share Haiti in a new, positive way.

Most of what people know is negative, she said. The natural disasters that have ravaged the country, the poverty, the history of slavery and colonialism.

The people get lost.

“It’s such a great country, and so many things came from Haiti that we all enjoy like sugars and sugarcane,” Desmangles said. “We want to bring it back and sort of stand up and say 'Haiti is great.'”

The power of a condiment

The thing about Pickled Pepper People’s slaw is you can put it on everything, Desmangles assured. Well, maybe not desserts, though one baker did make a chocolate cake with the leftover brine that was quite good, she said.

It’s all about marketing and getting people to try it. There is a precedent for condiments as a gateway to international cuisines. Sriracha has grown to its own empire level status with $150 million in sales in 2019.

Kimchi has seen huge growth in the U.S. market.

Other international condiments like harissa and gochujang are also gaining traction on American grocery store shelves.

“We want to be everywhere,” Desmangles said with a chuckle. “It’s going to take a lot of work.

"But, I’d love for people to know what it is and to understand it. Like Sriracha, people know what that is at this point. But I’m sure in the beginning they had an uphill battle just to educate people.”

The family moved to South Carolina in 2011. Being in a place with a much smaller Haitian community, it was the first time Desmangles recalls really thinking hard about being a representative of and for her culture.

Anytime the family hosted friends for dinner, Desmangles would make Haitian food. Griot and beans and rice and pikliz.

People loved it.

“After that, people were like 'you gotta sell this, you gotta bottle this,'” she said.

But Desmangles was content in her job as a teacher. She had earned a PhD in education from Clemson and was working at A.J. Whittenberg Elementary.

It wasn’t until she started getting the itch to build something of her own that Desmangles began to think about a food business. She tested the waters a bit first. She rented commercial kitchen space off Woodruff Road and began selling jars of her spicy slaw all while still working as a teacher.

But by the end of 2022, she realized to grow she really needed to go all in. She left teaching to do Pickled Pepper People fulltime in the spring of 2023.

Last year, Desmangles connected with Feed & Seed and moved her operations to the commercial kitchen space at Judson Mill. The move has allowed her to source local vegetables and peppers, and to use the food hub’s processing facilities for prepping her ingredients.

Now, Pickled Pepper People is available in three spice varieties.

There's mild, which is made with serrano peppers. Fire is made with habanero peppers and packs a little more spice. And death, which is made with ghost peppers and is very spicy.

Moving forward, Desmangles plans to add more Haitian products to her company’s repertoire, but for now, she’s happy to make her Pikay slaw full time and share a little bit of Haiti one jar at a time.

Pickled Pepper People’s Pikay slaw is available at local grocery stores and markets and online at www.pickledpepperpeople.com.