Shakeel Parker is a man who knows a lot about pickles. As a little boy, he would help his mother, Soraya, make her delicious dried fruit pickle for family meals. Today this qualified cinematographer and sound engineer runs the family business, Quality Pickles.
 
While on holiday in the Hex River valley in 2000, the Parker family pondered on how to develop Soraya’s already impressive culinary talents. The family was feeling the financial pressure that accompanied the onset of the new millennium. As Soraya gave it some thought, the idea sprang to mind: when in a pickle, bottle it. And thus Quality Pickles was born.
 
Today, Quality Pickles produce 11 sauces and seven pickles from their home-based factory in Cape Town. Business is booming, with over 20 000 bottles and jars of these delicious condiments leaving the factory each week. Top sellers include dania chutney, made with fresh coriander and garden-picked chillies, and the original dried fruit pickle. New additions to the sauce range include mild peri-peri, hot peri-peri (Shakeel warns that you should have ice-cream on standby for this fiery number), pepper sauce and Tandoori sauce. Each sauce and pickle is unique, and has a multitude of uses. The seafood sauce, for example, can be used with fish, as a dipping sauce for prawns and calamari, or even as a marinade for chicken. The dried fruit pickle was once used at Kelvin Grove in a dessert!
 
A talented businessman, Shakeel keeps a careful watch on consumer demand and develops products to please his customers. He is excited to be releasing new-look product labels in March that will provide ingredient and nutritional information. He is also currently working on a new sweet chilli sauce to meet the demand for a more subtle version. With the ever-increasing customer demand for locally sourced, organic ingredients, Shakeel will be growing his own coriander and vegetables at home this year. Quality Pickles also has a recipe book in the pipeline, offering delicious recipe ideas that incorporate its products.
 
All Quality Pickles products are made with fresh vegetables straight from the market and the finest spices. No added preservatives are used and the packaging is recyclable. From their humble beginnings, the Parker family has developed pickles and sauces that are made with tradition, care and love. It’s no wonder that their customers use the phrase “Proe jy net daai achaar!”
 
Quality Pickles products are available at a number of stockists, such as the Cape Spice Emporium, Fairfield Meat Centre and Spice World. For the full range of stockists, contact Shakeel on 021 637 8751.