It all started one afternoon before Christmas last year, when teacher Grant Kennedy made a batch of pepper jelly and gave some to his friends and fellow teachers.

Bruce McMartin and Joel McDonell were so blown away by the sweet but spicy condiment, that there and then they hatched a plan to turn the cooking experiment into a full-on business.

And less than six months on the three CedarBridge Academy teachers have just launched a range of hot and spicy jams through their company the Bermuda Jam Factory.

"We are so excited about our product," said Mr. McMartin, who teaches mathematics, French and social sciences. "We started selling them last week at the Farmer's Market, and then at Harbour Nights this week, and we have sold out."

The three men, who have set up a partnership together, did a first trial run of 50 cases with 12 jars per case of the Gombey Hot Pepper Jam.

"The response has been overwhelming," said Mr. McMartin. "We had cruise ship passengers buying eight or nine jars to take back to them and MP Dale Butler has bought about the same to go with his fish cakes. In fact he wants to buy several cases for a Government football match on May 22."

The team first of all thought that the jam making could have been a school science project, but there were already too many projects in the pipeline, so they decided to go it along.

They have been working after school in the CedarBridge Academy kitchens (with the school's blessing) working on recipes and brewing huge vats of hot and spicy red jelly.

And now that the summer holidays are coming they will be able to set aside more time to work on their new second job as jam makers.

"Everything but the jars are made in Bermuda," said Mr. McMartin. "Even the labels and the peppers are grown here too."

The men have a three-phase plan to make their millions in the jam trade, with the Farmer's Market and Harbour Nights stalls as the first stage, the second being gift packets for smaller stores and department stores and the third for supermarket distribution.

And if all that goes well, they will look, eventually, to selling the jam overseas ? but they are sticking to their original business plan to start with.

They have so far only launched three out of six proposed flavours ? Easy Breeze, Storm Surge, Tropical Storm, Gale Warning, and Hurricane Force ? in growing degrees of hot pepper heat

"Gombey Hot Pepper Jam is the 'all weather' condiment for fish, chicken, cold cuts, steaks, bread and cheese", said Mr. Kennedy, who teaches social sciences.

"The great thing is you can put it on everything and anything, you name it," said Mr. McDonell, who teaches culinary arts and took Mr. Kennedy's secret recipe and extrapolated it into large batch production.

McDonell worked on 16 different batch recipes over four months in long hours of after-school cooking and setting up taste testing sessions for friends and colleagues.

"We went back to the drawing board, or more accurately, the cooking pot, numerous times until we had the taste, colour and consistency that we wanted," said Mr. McDonell.

"Our product improved after every batch, and like a great wine, our products have a 'peppery nose'. It is very sweet on the palate and has a gradual slow heat finish."