The public response to the recent opening of the new Massy Superstore at Turkeyen has been pleasing without being excessive. The novelty of shopping malls in Guyana may not have entirely receded though we have become sufficiently used to them as to cause the openings of new ones to become progressively less ground-breaking in their nature. So it is with the new Massy Superstore. Over time, people will probably visit the store as a kind of ‘outing,’ make a handful of purchases when they choose to visit and eventually decide whether, for one reason that has to do with what the store offers, or another, they will transfer their patronage or retain their old loyalties. In the instance of the new Massy Superstore there are almost certainly instances in which those kinds of decisions have already been made.
This is the second major supermarket investment in Guyana by the Trinidad and Tobago company. It sends a signal not just that Guyana continues to be open for foreign investment, but also that, viewed from abroad, the country continues to be seen as a strategically important location in the region and the hemisphere for major outside investments. It also suggests that, as a country, we are more receptive to foreign investments than some of our CARICOM partners. Trinidad and Tobago, for example, continues to seek out investment opportunities here that are linked to the continually growing attraction of an emerging major oil and gas industry, though the available evidence suggests that as far as the twin-island republic’s receptivity to receiving our local products is concerned, reciprocity has not exactly been its strongpoint.
The opening of the new Massy Superstore can also be seen as perhaps a response in our own small corner of the world to a more global phenomenon, an across-the-board consumer demand for increased use of technology to enhance the shopping experience as revealed in the results of a study undertaken earlier this year by the US cooling technology company Phononic. In terms of how technology could be used to make shopping both more pleasing and more convenient the study suggests that technology be leveraged to respond to consumer demand for faster checkouts and for a bigger role for grocery retailers in providing menus and meal ideas beyond those that are already fixtures in household kitchens.
The Phononic study also suggests that in just the past year there has been considerable disruption in the global food retail landscape as traditional grocers come under pressure to differentiate the customer experience and offer higher levels of in-store efficiency. In fact, consumer feedback appears to point to the need for grocers to embrace technology options that make the shopping experience much more of an adventure than the routine chore that it customarily has been.
Contextually, credit should be given to the Bounty chain which has emerged as a local front runner in bringing the supermarket experience more in line with what consumers demand. More recently, Bounty has been joined by other investors, including companies like Survival and N&S. Mattai in seeking to bring the local supermarket experience closer to what we are told are consumer expectations. On the whole, these days, consumers are almost certainly likely to note the pleasing advancements into the age of the contemporary supermarket that have occurred here. This of course is not to say that these will not continue to come under increasing pressure to incrementally raise their game in terms of even more enhanced technology applications, including, eventually, a demand for features like cashier-less checkout systems.
The modern supermarket, with its controlled in-store temperature, expansive floor space, roomy aisles, creative add-ons and bewildering array of consumer goods has become commonplace in most forward-looking countries. They are, in a sense, symbols of affluence and in the particular instance of Guyana, a further indication that the days of the common ‘cake shop’ and the somewhat more upscale community grocery are probably approaching an end, the relatively recent astonishing proliferation of Chinese-run convenience stores, predominantly outside of Georgetown, notwithstanding.
It is, however, the upscale outlets that are the subject of this particular discourse. These may well be set to take us by storm, to alter the grocery shopping landscape forever with their technology-driven dimensions and their ‘feel good’ sensations. It raises, it seems, the question as to whether the rise of the modern grocery outlet might not be making yet another profound statement about the across-the-board lifestyle ambitions towards which we now well and truly aspire.
The discourse about the rise of the modern supermarket, however, does not end there. It has to go beyond the quality of the shopping experience, extending into the disposition of investors in the food and other areas of the consumer goods distribution sector to affording earned display space to locally produced goods. Both government and the private sector, the latter through its Business Support Organizations, must say to foreign investors that the opportunity to invest here comes at a price which includes their preparedness to afford local products generous merited shelf space so that they can have the same level of access to the market. We discard the very essence of what we say is our support for locally produced goods if we deny them the enhanced marketing opportunity afforded by the high–profile marketing of the modern outlets. Surely, the advent of hi-tech mega retail outlets in Guyana ought to provide agro processors and other producers in the creative sectors with incentives to ‘raise their game.’ After all, advocating that there be more access for local goods in high profile outlets is not the same thing as asking those outlets to invest their image-enhancing energies on products and services which, for one reason or another, do not make the grade. So that while we stress that there can be no question of having high profile distribution outlets invaded by product of questionable quality and even more questionable presentation standards against the backdrop of some jingoistic ‘buy local’ chant (since such a ‘policy’ is bound to cause investors, be they local or otherwise, to rethink the wisdom of their investments) there should be clear and transparent standards by which product acceptability standards are measured in order to afford local products a ‘fair shake.’
The process has already started. We are told that some of the bigger food outlets may have created criteria for determining access by locally produced goods based on quality-related (both in terms of product quality as well as product presentation) considerations. The formula is, of course, not likely to be as effective as it should be except local small manufacturers are afforded the opportunity to raise their standards. This newspaper has already commented on the need for government, commercial banks and local Business Support Organizations to play their respective parts in building capacity among small, employment-creating, income-generating enterprises in the small business sector. Here, the pace of progress is still painfully slow.
