Local agro-produce aim for greater market impact
Things may be ‘looking up’ for the agroprocessing sector as the Guyana Marketing Corporation’s Robb and Alexander streets Guyana Shop seeks to promote a wider range of local spreads, spices and sauces in an effort to secure greater traction on the local market for small and medium-scale producers. When Stabroek Business engaged the Shop’s General Manager Kevin Macklingham earlier this week he expressed satisfaction over what he says has been “a closer relationship” between the shop and local producers though he conceded that local manufacturing is still some distance away from realizing its true potential.
What he asks is that comparisons be made between what the sub-sector offers the local market today and what obtained up to just a few years ago. He has a point. Both in terms of the range of products now available and the presentation to consumers, there has been a discernable degree of forward movement.
What, frequently, are no more than modest (a family/one-man/one-woman) undertakings aimed at subsidizing incomes, are in some instances on the verge of market breakthroughs, sufficient to provide encouragement for increased investment.
Macklingham, reluctant though he seems to overstate the case, takes the view that the worm is turning. Some local agroproduce, taking advantage of the GMC’s support, are beginning to hold their own on supermarket shelves though he admits that consumers still appear to favour imports. Macklingham believes this habit can be broken by a further acceleration of the old-fashioned ‘buy local’ campaign. He envisages a structured initiative that provides a place of pride for local goods alongside imports on supermarket shelves. “That is still not the case,” he says.
For that to change, Macklingham says, we need to go beyond a mere ‘buy local’ chant, focusing more attention on areas that include food safety standards, providing consumer information and packaging and labelling. Good quality but poorly presented products no longer have that ‘homey’ appeal; the contemporary market demands much more.
The evidence of progress to which Macklingham alludes is reflected in a greater collaborative effort between producers and the GMC to raise the profile of the local products. On the Guyana Shop’s side there is evidence of a higher standard of product display that matches the enhanced quality of packaging. When Stabroek Business visited the shop, condiments, spreads, food flavourings, wines, sweets, porridges, and snack foods all appeared infinitely more marketable than a few years ago, the packaging having risen significantly above handwritten
Cassava production is not new to residents of Quarrie and other hinterland communities where ground provision is commonly cultivated. Over the years cassava has been cultivated at subsistence level in the Quarrie community. The current initiative, however, derives from an approach made to the Ministry of Agriculture by the community with a request for support with a project that sought to cultivate bitter cassava in commercial quantities. The com-