Marcia Gonsalves-Kwang refuses to sit and watch what, up until now, has been a rewarding agro-processing enterprise become just one of a swathe of once promising ventures to fall victim to COVID-19. The impact is hurting but that, she says, is assuaged by the conviction that she is in business ‘for the long haul.’
For now, though, Marcia’s Products, her trading name, is being buffeted by the gale force winds of the rampaging virus and she says so bluntly. Orders for the Casareep, Cassava Bread, Coconut Oil, Farine and Tapioca, products on which she has, these past eight years, staked the reputation of her enterprise, have slowed considerably. The upshot of this is that the new electric mill, fridge and generator, acquisitions that had been contemplated as part of her growth projections, have had to be put ‘on hold.’
Marcia’s Products was launched in 2012.
The truth is that while the Region One native runs a modest establishment at this time, she harbours more exalted ambitions. The Guyana Shop apart, the Bounty chain is another one of her outlets.
It is difficult to leave the COVID-19 pandemic out of the discourse. The Guyana Shop has altered its opening hours and is among those food distribution outlets that has responded to greater consumer target buying by reassessing its own purchase choices. It is the same with the other outlets. These days she has had to grow accustomed to calling up her faithful customers in the Soesdyke/Linden community to seek after extra patronage.
There are yardsticks that offer clinical measurement of the extent of the market decline. Prior to the ‘arrival’ of COVID-19 here, her cassava-based products accounted for the monthly use of around one thousand pounds of cassava. These days, purchases in the region of, at best, four hundred pounds will do. She comforts herself, she says, in the fact that reduced demand has resulted in lower prices for bitter cassava.
A fair chunk of her business has also been curtailed by the halt in international air travel. Patronage by customers purchasing for relatives abroad used to earn her a ‘pretty penny.’ That income stream has dried up.
What the advent of COVID-19 has also affected are plans that had already been in the pipeline for the purchase of a new power generator, mill and refrigerator as part of her projected growth plans. Those purchases have now been put ‘on hold’ since the sudden decline in business has meant that savings now have to be redirected to other more immediate needs. If there is a saving grace, Marcia says, it reposes in the fact that the business is debt-free.
If she would have preferred to be trading normally Marcia is using the present ‘down time’ to review her business plans. An earlier investment in a 5-acre farm at Yarrowkabra has set in motion a plan to begin to cultivate the crops which she uses in her production process, this notwithstanding the fact that efforts, up until now to pursue farming have been undermined by a serious ant infestation. Fortunately, the destructive pests have spared her pineapple crop and the ensuing sales have been a welcome income supplement. Beyond pineapple sales has also received further additional income from manufacturing and bottling pineapple jam.
When we first met Marcia in 2014, her business was merely a two-year-old ‘kitchen operation.’ Growth since then is evident, particularly in the significantly improved standard of her packaging. These days she also has her own plot of land, more reliable electricity and, she says, a new husband who is very supportive.
Raw materials for her production process and cash crops are currently sourced from farmers at Parika but the longer-term aim is to cultivate her own. Some of that has been happening already though she frets over a determined army of ants that impede the pace of her farming pursuit.
We found time to talk about the earliest days following Marcia’s arrival on the coast from Moruca. She worked, first, as a teacher at a private school, doubling up as an Agent for the popular Avon cosmetics brand. During the time that she had left she assisted a relative with the marketing of cash crops. Afterwards, she had a spell as a stay-at-home mother.
Marcia’s introduction to agro processing began with a gift of several bags of cassava from a farming relative at Friendship on the East Bank of Demerara. She and her sister had immediately set about making cassava bread which they sold in the neighbourhood where they lived. Some of her Avon clients also became cassava bread customers. Recognizing that the venture was financially worthwhile the two entered into a formal partnership which, unfortunately did not last very long.
Her significant breakthrough came when she met Dwayne Winter. The two entered into an arrangement through which he bought and repackaged her cassava bread and found outlets at local supermarkets. Winter has since migrated but Marcia has pressed on. Her cassava bread can now be found on the shelves of Bounty Supermarket, DSL and The Guyana Shop though her efforts to increase supplies to the market continued to be thwarted by failed attempts at bitter cassava cultivation.
There had been, in the earliest days, a routine to Marcia’s production process. The peeling, cleaning, washing and milling of cassava was done on Mondays. That exercise, she says, is physically demanding and often extended into the early hours of the next day. The remaining weekdays were spent manufacturing the cassava bread…up to eight hundred pounds every fortnight.
With her husband now very much ‘in the picture,’ Marcia says that production time has been significantly reduced. The peeling of the cassava commences as soon as it is delivered after which it is soaked overnight. The power-generated mill is then pressed into service to grate and grind the cassava. It takes around forty minutes to grate and grind four hundred pounds of cassava. Afterwards the juice would be extracted using nine matapees specially built by her husband. These adjustments to the production process, Marcia says, have reduced both the effort and the time involved. Her two sons, Jada and Joshua also contribute to the production process.
The advent of COVID-19 has inflicted a sudden and dramatic intrusion into Marcia’s business pursuits. It has meant making adjustments and sacrifices but she is not disheartened. Challenges, she believes, come and go and she has no reason to believe that it will be any different with this new threat to her livelihood.
