Guyana may not be anywhere close to the top of the regional pile as far as the high food import bill is concerned but Sterling Products Chief Executive Officer, Ramsey Ali says that should not diminish the focus on redirecting the country’s foreign exchange expenditure by taking advantage of what our agricultural sector has to offer.
In the instance of the company’s recently launched plantain fries it is a question of taking advantage of bountiful harvests and affordable prices, on the one hand, and the value-added potential afforded by agro-processing.
The advent of Plantain Fries raises the age-old debate in Guyana’s agricultural sector as to whether locally cultivated plantains produced at competitive prices is not a compelling argument for cutting back on the considerable amounts spent on importing potatoes and more recently, potato fries. The focus of the discourse may have shifted somewhat with the advent of new initiatives to cultivate potatoes in commercial quantities. That, however, still does not remove the argument for doing more with potatoes; at least that is the view of Sterling Products Ltd.
The Company is