From sideshow events at local fairs and exhibitions, small and micro enterprise agro processing has become a popular pursuit among mostly women seeking second incomes or those determined to embrace the processing of fruit and vegetables as a means of building modest but successful businesses.
Marva Hestick is a retired headmistress whose entrepreneurial spirit predates her retirement from the teaching profession. Entrepreneurship, she says, has always been in her blood, her grandfather having once owned a coconut oil factory. It is this, she believes, that might have led her to pioneer Alpha Agro Processors and to want to take it as far as she can.
The enterprise is still to come even close to the level of success to which it aspires, but Hestick and the four other investors in Alpha appear to have a clear vision of where they want to take the venture. She says they continue to seek out marketing opportunities both through the customary commercial outlets and through initiatives that