Soul of Rurality awardee Rosamund Benn is a living example of...
From 3A
After her children completed secondary school and some did tertiary level education, the Benns started to look at adding value to their main product, the coconut. It was selling cheaply. “We started making coconut oil, the one you boil,” she recalled.
In 2005, Benn joined the Pomeroon Women AgroProcessors Association (PWAPA). She served as secretary for some years and then was its chairperson. As an executive of PWAPA, she attended seminars and conferences held locally and internationally on women in agriculture. “Most of the time I was selected to attend because I like to talk,” she said.
Through the PWAPA, she learned about IICA.
“IICA, the Guyana School of Agriculture (GSA), the CUSA International and the Ministry of Agriculture were our training partners,” she related. “I learned about business development, business management, financial management, product development, marketing, packaging and most of what we needed to know in managing a sustainable business. IICA and CUSO exposed us to what others were doing elsewhere and what we could do. I’m grateful for the training I’ve had over the years and the many forums by other organisations. My travels to many parts of the world were facilitated by the African Caribbean Pacific group of countries, the United Nations agencies, IICA and the previous and current governments.”
Wadnet
The Women in Agro-processors Development Network (Wadnet) comprising 12 women’s groups from Regions One, Two, Four, Six and Nine, was formed in Hosororo in August 2012 to meet the marketing and other needs of the women’s groups in those regions.
Wadnet has a paid administrator, and a volunteer facilitator in Dr Maxine Parris-Aaron of IICA.
From Region One, Blue Flame Women’s Group of Hosororo markets cocoa sticks, cassava bread, cassava cassareep, virgin coconut oil, ground coffee. Waini Secrets Women’s Group markets crabwood oil, crabwood oil cream, crabwood oil soap and crabwood oil lotion.
From Region Nine comes peanut butter, cashew nuts, peanuts, salted peanuts, cashew nut butter and farine. The group, Medicine From Trees, also markets some herbal tinctures including Kaiambe, which, Benn said, is good for fibroids and provides relief from cancers.
Region Six markets coconut biscuit, mittai, pepper sauce and green seasonings.
From Region Two comes cassava bread, carambola, cashew cake mixes, green seasonings, hot peppers, acai berry wine, acai berry powder, acai berry oil, virgin coconut oil and coconut cassareep.
Benn, who trades under the name Pomeroon Rose Products, also manufactures a herbal oil made from the chanca piedra bush. It is good for mosquito bites, sand flies and itches.
All of the Wadnet members’ factories are certified by the Food and Drug Analyst Department with annual renewable licences to operate from the Deeds Registry.
Last year, the Guyana National Bureau of Standards gave approval for Pomeroon Rose Products to market its virgin coconut oil and coconut cassareep under the ‘Made in Guyana’ brand.
Pomeroon Rose also produces fruit cake mixes, hot pepper sauce, and two different hair oils - one for growth and thickness and the other, for dandruff and itchy scalp.
Benn first started selling her products to the Guyana Shop operated by the New Guyana Marketing Corporation (GMC). “Thank God for GMC,” she said fervently. “They buy all our products. They encouraged us with labelling that includes bar code, batch number, manufacture date, expiry date etc. They said get your licences and we will buy from you. They have lived up to their word.”
Benn’s markets for various
products include N&S Mattai, Massy supermarkets and Giftland Food Max.
Virgin coconut oil
In 2010, Benn started making virgin coconut oil on a large scale using only solar heat. During the 1980s she made the boiled coconut oil to sell when there was a shortage of imported vegetable cooking oils.
“We sold coconut oil to Suriname traders. Then we stopped making coconut oil when copra and the round nuts were selling good on the market. After the price for copra fell, I restarted making coconut oil,” she said.
In 2010, while a member of the PWAPA, Benn learned about virgin coconut oil, known also as ‘pressed oil.’
“I showed what I had made to our members. They said that was the oil they were looking for. That was the birth of my virgin coconut oil,” she said. “I learned to make it at home by myself through trial and error. I was very keen to make it because I had bought some virgin coconut oil prior to making my own but they were rancid. Sometimes I couldn’t even use them. My virgin coconut oil is natural, no chemicals. You can use it as a mouthwash, you can put it in your coffee, you can use it in your hair.”
She was still a member of PWAPA, when Region Two held a regional innovative project contest. The group won the award for the best innovative product with the virgin coconut oil in which Benn was a major player. “The money we won for that project was used to develop the group.”
In 2017, after leaving PWAPA, Benn registered Pomeroon Rose Products and subsequently joined Wadnet independent of PWAPA. The year she joined Wadnet under her brand, Benn was elected its president. The incumbent, she has completed serving two terms at different periods.
Family business
Benn’s son, Samuel, for the past two years, has been Pomeroon Rose Products’ marketing manager.
A graduate of the GSA where he studied forestry, he worked for a year with the Guyana Forestry
Commission then obtained a bachelor’s degree in environmental studies from the University of Guyana (UG). After UG, he worked for five years with the Protected Areas Commission spending most of his time at Shell Beach managing the endangered marine turtles.
On joining Pomeroon Rose he revamped it while still doing environmental-based consultancy offshore.
“Sales were slow. Samuel redesigned the labels and started seeking markets. He acquired some new markets including Massy Stores and Giftland Food Max. We send the products to him in Georgetown for distribution. We have a very timely delivery,” Benn said
Pomeroon Rose also assists other small scale producers in the community with marketing.
“We used to buy their oils. After we increased our capacity, we eased buying theirs but we put them onto other markets. A lot of them have also increased their production. One of the main things that is lacking for them is the ability to export. We were at the Agricultural Investment Forum last year. We will be there this year.”
At first the Benns manufactured their products on their own. Now they provide employment to about five families on a parttime basis, to harvest the coconuts, prepare the facility for processing, and to burst and extract the coconuts from the shell. After that Benn and her husband take over the processing.
“We try as far as possible to maintain quality, consistency and purity. To maintain that we take over the manufacturing from the grinding and extraction process of the oil. For bottling and labelling, two of my daughters help us on weekends when it’s possible for them.”
The Benns’ production of virgin coconut oil is not highly mechanised with the exception of grinding the coconut. Squeezing and syphoning of the oil is done manually.
The Benns use their own coconuts from their estate. “I work an average of 10,000 coconuts a month. We buy carambola and peppers from farmers. We don’t produce carambola. We produce peppers but not on a large scale. Chanca piedra herbs grow on our farm,” she said.
“When people ask me how I moved from one stage to the next, I tell them I was very dependent on my husband initially because I was very shy. Because of exposure initially through PWAPA, I learned to stand on my own. If you have a thought about doing something, don’t think about failure. Think about how you are going to make it grow.
“Over the years. I had a plaque on my wall that read, ‘Dreams are the tiny seeds from which a beautiful tomorrow grows.’ If you have a tiny seed in your heart don’t ever let it go away.”