If you happen by the Guyana Marketing Corporation’s Guyana Shop on any trading day you will almost certainly be struck by the number of products on display on the shelves. The bottling and labelling too are a considerable improvement on the standards of earlier years; the manufacturers not only having come to terms with the nexus between presentation and competitiveness but also having committed themselves to investing more meaningfully in marketing their products.
The Guyana Shop does not attract the numbers of customers who find their way into regular supermarkets because it offers a limited range of products, mostly locally manufactured food products made by various small businesses from across the country. That is the Ministry of Agriculture’s way of providing marketing support for the efforts of local agro-processors.
A few weeks ago, a group of holidaying Guyanese were in the Guyana Shop, examining the various brands of seasonings and checking on prices. As far as such condiments are concerned they are spoilt for choice and while the number of brands point to a decade and more of energetic pursuit of commercial agro-processing, the