Although a few are eaten fresh and some are used dry, most of the Italian Wax Peppers in Northern California are pickled. Growing and pickling peppers has long been popular with home canners, but a handful of small companies have produced pickled peppers for sale. Commercial production of pickled peppers in the area began in 1940s and still continues today.
Bruno Pepper Company
The Bruno family began pickling Italian Wax Peppers in 1947. Originally product was sold under two brands (one was called Golden Gate) which was owned by Georgetti Foods in Oakland, CA. In 1954, the Bruno family began packing peppers under their own label in Lodi,CA. Bruno’s is operated by the third generation of the Bruno family and remains a popular brand in Northern California.
Marchant
The Marchant brand of wax peppers could be found around the Stockton/Lodi area from the mid-1940s until the late-1950s. This was also a family-owned label. Many people mistakenly refer to Italian Wax Peppers as Bruno Peppers or Marchant Peppers because of the popularity of these early brands of pickled peppers.
Sierra Nevada
The Sierra Nevada brand got started in the area around Lone Pine, CA and Bishop, CA in the 1970s. The peppers under this label are known as chilenos. This company was started by Don Josephs and Jerry Swab. This partnership dissolved and Don and his family held onto theSierra Nevada label while Jerry and his family went and started Swab Farms. During the 1980s Bruno Pepper Company began producing product for the Sierra Nevada brand and eventually took over all production and distribution of the Sierra Nevada brand in 1994.
High Sierra
Swab Farms owned the High Sierra brand. These pickled peppers were also known as chilenos. Swab Farms was started after the Sierra Nevada partnership was dissolved in the early-1980s (see above). Swab Farms continued to produce peppers and other items, closing their doors in 2007.
Vallecito Peppers
The Ferbotnik family grew and pickled peppers in Vallecito, CA. The peppers grown in this area of the foothills were known as Vallecito peppers, pickled or fresh. They were often purchased at a store/gas station run by the family. The family got out of the pickled pepper business sometime in the 1970s. There were still a few people selling fresh Vallecitos in 2002/2003.
Holler’s
This brand was produced in Stockton by Jack Holler in conjunction with Zuckerman Farms. After home canning for several years, Jack introduced the Holler’s brand in the late-1980s to compete directly with the Bruno’s brand. Produced and distributed exclusively by Zuckerman Farms in its final years, the Holler’s brand of pickled peppers disappeared in the late-1990s.
Lil’ Nippers
The brand was started by Jerry Jorgensen & Shirley Jorgensen in 1995. This product line was also started to compete directly with Bruno’s, even adopting Bruno’s term for peppers of medium heat, Nippy. Currently, the brand is produced in Ripon, CA by NatureBornFoods. Currently (2012), trying to confirm that this company is out of business.
Mezzetta’s
Mezzetta’s has been a popular brand of pickled products for several generations. Once a small, family operation it has grown into a large, corporate food manufacturer. The company imports and produces hundreds of items. Mezzetta’s first introduced Italeno peppers in 1986, changing the name of their product from Italeno to Italian Wax Peppper in 2004.
Other Brands
Ellens’s Peppers were produced by Ellen Loeffelbein. This brand existed around the Stockton/Lodi area in the mid-to-late-1950s. The Scofield’s brand of peppers, produced by relatives of the Marchand family also existed around this time. Bruno Pepper Company sold pickled Italian Wax Peppers to Rio Linda Food Products, Monarch Foods and Fancy Foods (who called them Finger Peppers). These companies used Bruno’s product in the 1960’s and early-1970s. I have also heard of a brand called Rossilenos, started by a family named Rossi in the Owens Valley area.