UK farmer now growing world's hottest commercially-grown pepper

It is the hottest chilli you can buy in the high street. A commercially-grown chilli that has surpassed the powerfully potent Dorset Naga. Now thanks to a farmer in southern England, the local supermarkets will stock the Bhut Jolokia.

Tesco began stocking the Dorset Naga, which has a rating of 923,000 Scovilles in 2009, and such was the popularity of the hot pepper the supermarket giant asked UK farmer, Salvatore Genovese to produce more hot chillies after demand grew by over 200 percent. Mr Genovese, whose farm is in Blunham in the county of Bedfordshire, is the UK's largest chilli grower.

The Bhut Jolokia is difficult to grow but as Mr Genovese reveals, "[when eaten] It does hurt". On its website, Chillis Galore said the Bhut Jolokia measures in at over one million Scovilles, the unit used to measure chilli pepper heat.

The chilli pepper is referred to in the US as the ghost chili or ghost pepper. The Bhut Jolokia was replaced as the hottest known chili pepper by its cousin the Naga Viper pepper in December 2010.

In February this year the title for the "World's Hottest Chilli" went to the Infinity chilli, grown in Grantham, England. But just weeks later the title was returned to the Naga Viper.

Then more recently, a pepper that requires wearing protective gloves when handling, broke all the records at 1.4 million Scovilles - the Trinidad Scorpion Butch also can induce temporary blindness if exposed too close to the eyes.