Check out Beechwood's Gourmet Guava Sauce

Move over tomato ketchup, there's a new sauce in town. Jamaican gourmet guava sauce is the first product in the Beechwood Products brand. The line was conceptualised by the Women's Resource and Outreach Centre (WROC) to encourage the production of alternative crops for agro-processing. Located at 47 Beechwood Avenue, Kingston 5, WROC is an non-governmental organisation that provides support to inner-city and rural communities through a number of programmes.

Their guava sauce came out of one such programme in St Thomas. WROC began working in St Thomas in 2001, after one of the many tropical systems that batter the island annually. They worked with the communities of Johnson Mountain, Spring Bank, Somerset, Trinity Villa and Mount Vernon. Since 2008, with funding from the European Union and Christian Aid, the WROC sought a new sustainable source of income for ex-banana farmers. The answer, guava.

Marketing Officer Alexis McDavid and WROC board member Kathleen Goldson-Clarke told Food that guava is a very resilient crop found in abundance in the parish. The season for the fruit is usually three months, and there are two seasons each year.

Great health benefits

The health benefits of the fruit are extensive. It has high levels of vitamin C in the skin - more than five times that of orange. McDavid notes that the entire fruit is used in the purée.

The product is completely unique to St Thomas. The women collect the guava and are paid for what they take in to CANCO Limited in St Thomas, where the sauce is manufactured.

In 2009, they tested a prototype of the sauce at the annual Denbigh Agricultural and Industrial Show, and at this year's show, they returned with a big splash.

A combination of the red, pink and white varieties of guava, the sauce is similar to ketchup and can be used for the same purposes. It can also be added to barbecue sauce, salad dressing or used in gravy. Sugar can be added to it to make a dessert sauce.

"People really like it and it's not too sweet - which was deliberate to make it versatile," McDavid said.

The sauce is currently available at General Foods in Liguanea, Family Pride in Havendale, and the Things Jamaica stores at Devon House, Sangsters International Airport and Norman Manley International Airport. It can also be purchased at the Portland Marina and at WROC's Beechwood Avenue headquarters.