Manufacturing high-quality food spices requires the strictest rules and recipes. In the first instance you must choose ingredients of the highest quality which means that you must have some awareness of the conditions under which they are cultivated. Even the best ingredients, however, can ‘backfire’ if they do not adhere consistently to a formulated recipe. What helps too is if you have a passion for the pursuit.
It took Lakeraj Singh, popularly known as Roy, two decades to bring Roy’s Spices to where it is today. One of the better-known manufacturing enterprises on the Essequibo Coast, at Adventure, the company has gradually expanded its reputation to become a wider household name across Guyana. Roy’s has placed on the market more than thirty of the more popular spices and seasonings which are to be found in domestic kitchens and restaurants in Guyana including curry power, grounded ginger, grounded black pepper, masala, geera, cinnamon, mustard seed, nutmeg, clove, aniseed, turmeric and pimento among others. The brand has carved out its own niche on the market.
Roy’s working life began in tailoring. At fourteen he had been sent by his mother to be trained as a tailor. Afterwards, he spent five years in Suriname, the first one in tailoring and the other four in farming. In 1987 he returned to Guyana and married his wife, Lilowattie.
A spell as a trader between Guyana and Suriname metamorphosed into the establishment of a grounded business enterprise, beginning at the Suddie Market on Sundays. These days, he markets his goods at all of the three municipal markets on the Essequibo Coast at Suddie, on Sundays, Anna Regina on Fridays and Charity on Mondays.
Between himself and a Berbice-based business partner, the two import spices from India and Brazil. Roy is hoping that at some point in time the local prices for ginger and turmeric will become sufficiently competitive for him to make his purchases locally more frequently. Prior to the advent of COVID-19 Roy and his sons had been researching machinery to peel tumeric. The pandemic has put that pursuit ‘on hold.’
Roy’s spices has had its own share of ‘beat down’ from COVID-19. Govinda Singh, the company’s Marketing Manager says that the pandemic has reduced product sales by around 30%. The border closure has dried up black pepper supplies from Brazil. Local supplies are available but at higher prices and since there has been no upward adjustment in the company’s prices, profits have slipped appreciably.
Meanwhile, the movement of goods from Essequibo has been negatively impacted on account of the adjustment in the scheduled service between Supenaam and Parika.
If the company has any serious regret it has to do with the fact that a faithful employee, its delivery man is now unemployed.
If these are challenging times, Roy believes that he has traveled some distance over the past twenty years. He had begun with limited quantities of three products at a time when his only technological tool was a Hand Mill. Products were sold in fragile plastic and the openings sealed with candle wax. Today, Roy’s Spices boasts an automated factory, enhanced production standards, eye-catching packaging and a healthy share of the local market. The Proprietor concedes that the Company has had to move with the times.
Perhaps the greatest gift that his enterprise has afforded him is the opportunity to educate his children. His daughter, Nalini is a doctor at the Suddie Hospital, Dave and Hemraj, both graduates of the University of Guyana, are electrical engineers while his youngest son, Govinda is studying Computer Science at UG.
Roy’s Spices is being ‘roughed up’ by the Coronavirus but the company’s proprietor is not looking a gift horse in the mouth.
