Chief Executive Officer of Guyana Stockfeeds Inc (GSI) Robert Badal recently outlined what he described as the company’s outstanding post-privatization accomplishments, at a reception held at the Pegasus Hotel to mark its fiftieth anniversary.
Badal told guests at the reception that since 1998 when he secured control of the company it had “grown into an $8 billion company, the leading producer of poultry and other livestock feeds and day old chicks in Guyana.” According to Badal, GSI had, over the past 12 years, invested $4 billion in storage and wharf facilities and in new technology, investments which he said had “transformed GSI into a well-diversified company with interest in rice, edible oils and livestock feeds. The synergies created by each segment of its business make this company a low-cost, highly competitive producer.”
And, according to Badal, perhaps 90% of all feeds used by non-integrated farms in Guyana are produced by GSI. “It has been the catalyst that propelled local poultry production from 18 million pounds in 1998 to 60 million pounds currently,” he added.
GSI was established in 1960 by Booker Tate to provide feeds for the local livestock industry. The company was nationalized in the 1970s but returned to private ownership in 1998.
Meanwhile, Badal said the company’s Angel brand parboiled rice has achieved “a significant presence in the export market in just three years. Angel can be found in most supermarkets in Trinidad, Barbados, Grenada, St Lucia and Jamaica,” Badal said.
According to Badal, many competitors had emerged over the years but GSI had prevailed on account of its focus on “quality in meeting, even exceeding customer expectations; a consistently high quality from batch to batch, day to day, year to year. Our slogan ‘quality without question, performance guaranteed’, together with reliability, consistency, and competitive prices has made Kaituk Feeds a household name locally.”
Badal said that apart from its business achievements GSI had “created a fertile environment for employees’ growth and development.” He said that the entity could be described as a “one love company” that attracts employees who stay, develop themselves, mature and grow. “GSI has perhaps the best industrial relations climate in Guyana, with the lowest staff turnover. It is a record of which the company is most proud,” Badal declared.
He told his assembled guests that GSI had played a crucial role in the lives of thousands of families all across Guyana, alleviating poverty and strengthening families and had impacted on numerous lives including those of “coconut farmers who supplied dried coconuts for edible oil production; rice farmers who deliver paddy for processing into parboiled rice; rice millers whose rice byproducts are used to create value in the feed production chain,” and “the multitude of poultry farmers whose livelihoods and profitability are highly enhanced by daily supplies of freshly made high quality feeds from the company’s state-of-the-art integrated production complex.” He said the activities of the company had had a multiplier effect, creating additional jobs in the transportation, construction and shipping sectors while contributing further both in terms of taxes and in terms of community contributions.
GSI’s interests include the manufacture and sale of poultry and livestock feeds, hatching of baby chicks and processing of crude coconut oil. It is part of the business interests of the controlling shareholder that include National Edible Oil and Fats Inc, El Dorado Rice Mills Inc and El Dorado Restaurants. The enterprise is also the holder of the Popeye’s franchise in Guyana and Guyana Stockfeeds Limited (Trinidad and Tobago).