Chilli oil maker’s appearance on Channel 4’s Aldi’s Next Big Thing is dream come true

Joyce Gannon, owner of Ntsama’s Chilli Oil and Sauces on Norfolk Street in Cambridge, enjoyed a hot response after appearing on the Channel 4 show Aldi’s Next Big Thing.

Hosted by Anita Rani and Chris Bavin, it features small-scale British food and drink producers pitching their products to Britain’s fourth biggest supermarket chain.

Joyce, who came to the UK from Nigeria in 1989, appeared on Thursday, November 17, after having been chosen from hundreds of applicants.

She was featured alongside four other companies and although she didn’t win, earned positive comments, with the presenters noting that it was a “really good product”.

Joyce continued: “They commended me on the no-added sugar and what I’m trying to do with the product, because it’s a clean product made from fresh ingredients. Anita said that it was one of the best products that she had tasted.”

Joyce’s recipe has an interesting story behind it. “My very close friend – everybody called her Mama Ntsama – made this amazing chilli oil,” she recalls. “She said, ‘One day I’ll pass the recipe on to you’ but unfortunately she didn’t pass it on to me before she died. When she died we were all devastated.

“When I finished the last lot she had brought over, I tried everything to replicate it and I couldn’t. Then one Friday night, in 2008 or 2009, I had a dream and in it I came down from the bedroom downstairs to my kitchen and there she was.

“She didn’t speak a word but she just laid out all the ingredients and she made the chilli oil. Just as I was about to taste it, I woke up, so I wrote everything down, made the chilli oil, and it was exactly her chilli oil. I’ve never won the lottery but I imagine that’s what it would feel like!”

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Joyce went on to make and sell the chilli oil before setting up her own business in 2017 and starting to trade in 2018. For more on the business, visit ntsama.co.uk. Watch the episode at channel4.com/programmes/aldis-next-big-thing.