With the Caribbean under pressure not only to significantly reduce its multi-billion-dollar food import bill but also to increase its market share for food exports to North America and Europe a new partnership would appear to be emerging to help propel the region’s food and beverage industry.
Earlier this week the United States-based Global Business Innovation Corporation (GBIC) announced that it was launching a ‘Caribbean Food Business Innovation Revolution’, which it says aims to “transform the Caribbean’s food and beverage industry.”
The GBIC says it is working with businesses in Trinidad and Tobago as a first step in the direction of boosting Caribbean economies through “increased agricultural, agri-business and food beverage exports.”
The initiative bears an uncanny resemblance to a long-envisaged regional initiative to better position regional agricultural products and agro-processed goods for markets in North America by improving their readiness, particularly by upgrading product presentation through marketing and labelling.
Launched on Tuesday in collaboration with the EU-funded Caribbean Export and with the support of Trinidad and Tobago’s national export facilitation body, EXPORT TT the initiative derives from what GBIC Director Dr Basil Springer says is a belief that “the Caribbean food industry can become a world leader in promoting innovative business models.”
In a GBIC statement on the forum Springer says that US-based body is proposing that the industry embrace “a year-round export driven thrust to complement the gains already achieved through other initiatives.”
Perhaps not surprisingly, the GBIC directorate includes Guyanese-born Dr Owen Carryl, a product and technology development executive and innovation strategist who previously served in executive leadership positions with Procter & Gamble and PepsiCo.
Earlier this week Stabroek Business spoke with Dr Carryl from Port of Spain and he said the focus of the exercise in T&T was to begin a process which, hopefully, would lead to diversification of foods and beverages with a view to increasing volumes of exports to the United States.
Carryl said the forum allowed GBIC to take manufacturers and exporters in Trinidad and Tobago through a process of getting their products ready for possible acceptance in US stores like Walmart and Costco. “Of course it would mean that apart from product quality they would have to increase their production significantly,” he added. He said the envisaged outcomes included job-creation and finding markets for products “in a year or two.”
Asked about the likelihood of GBIC’s deeper involvement with the wider region in increasing food exports to the US, Carryl said that in this regard the initiative had reached out to Guyana.
Carryl is an experienced Product/Technology Development Executive and Innovation Strategist, who has delivered innovation to several brands, including Vicks, OTC Prilosec, Pepto-Bismol, Metamucil and Cheetos. He has also worked for industry-leading technology companies, including Smith-Kline Beecham Pharmaceuticals, Procter & Gamble, PepsiCo and the Avery Dennison.
The GBIC release quotes Springer as saying that the strategy being employed to help raise the profile of regional foods and beverages in the US is focused on “food design, innovation, shepherding and communications.” It is, the release says, “designed around a three-pronged, coordinated approach; governmental investment in manufacturers to boost economic growth; investment by the business community in manufacturers, aimed at enhancing profitability and community development and the engagement of manufacturers to support this incredible opportunity.”
The GBIC team also includes Mexico-based Brazilian Diego Ruzzarin, an Industrial Designer and US-based marketing and public relations practitioner Bevan Springer.
