Ed Currie

Ed Currie (born August 18, 1963) is an American chili pepper breeder who is the founder and president of the PuckerButt Pepper Company. He is best known for breeding the Carolina Reaper which was the hottest chili pepper in the world until, in 2023, Pepper X, also bred by Currie, took over as the hottest chili pepper, as recognized by Guinness World Records.

Background
Currie was born in West Bloomfield Township, Michigan. He graduated from Central Michigan University. In 2001, Currie moved to South Carolina, where he began growing his own peppers in the yard and experimenting with crossbreeds. He was featured in the episode "Chili Eating" in the 2020 Netflix documentary series We Are the Champions. He was also featured on Dirty Jobs.

PuckerButt Pepper Company
Currie started the PuckerButt Pepper Company in Fort Mill, South Carolina, in 2003. The company sells peppers considered to be extremely hot. It sells seeds, pepper mash, and hot sauce. PuckerButt is the largest organic pepper farm in the US, with annual sales of around $1 million. Currie's hot sauce "The Last Dab" was created for the YouTube show Hot Ones. The show is an interview which asks guests to eat increasingly spicy hot wings, with "The Last Dab" being the spiciest sauce presented.

Currie crossbreeds his pepper plants by taking the pollen of one plant with a paintbrush and then delivering that pollen to a different plant. To create the Carolina Reaper, he took a Naga pepper a chili pepper originally grown in India and Bangladesh and combined it with the La Soufriere pepper from Saint Vincent. In 2013, Guinness World Records gave the title of "World's Hottest Chili" to the Carolina Reaper. On August 23, 2023, he was officially recognized as having broken the previous record when Guinness World Records certified his Pepper X as the hottest chili pepper on earth, measuring at 2.69 million SHU.