The advent of the coronavirus has compelled significant shifts in the Stabroek Business’ coverage of micro- and small-business enterprises, our editorial attention now focussed to a greater extent on their coping capabilities and on the extent to which they have been able to sustain and even grow their levels of patronage in this challenging period. Unquestionably, if perhaps surprisingly, we have found that modest food service establishments across parts of coastal Guyana would appear to have come out ahead of the pack.
Whereas one might have thought that the emphasis on food hygiene that underpins some of the protocols associated with fending off COVID-19 would reduce consumer demand for ‘eating out,’ other factors appear to have worked to the benefit of small eating houses.
That appears to have been the case with the 73 Land of Canaan establishment, Triple A’s Catering Establishment, whose owner, Aweena Aulder, says that what began as a leap of faith is now more than holding its own.
Aweena has, quite simply, gone back to local ‘basics,’ offering the accustomed local favourites at affordable prices… fried rice, cook-up rice, pastries, dhal puri, fruit bowls, bread and cakes, among others, correctly interpreting what, amongst her customers, has been something of a shift away from ‘burning their fingers’ in a ‘season’ where there are other pressing distractions.
Aweena’s is one of those not unfamiliar stories of an inherited talent for cooking, in her instance an inheritance bequeathed by a grandmother whose cooking was second in importance only to her substantive calling as a seamstress. Accordingly, Aweena’s instructions in culinary skills were delivered mostly from her grandmother’s position at the sewing machine.
Fresh out of secondary school, she first worked at a hairdressing establishment before creating a modest one of her own. That was not, however, her real calling. Her decision to establish a catering service came via recommendations made by her husband and mother in law, the latter being able to secure catering contracts through social functions staged by her church.
Triple ‘A’s start was erected on the ambitions of its proprietor along with a ‘starting out’ gift of one hundred thousand dollars from her husband. It got off the ground in October 2019. Perhaps oddly enough, it was only then that she sought and secured a place at the Carnegie School of Home Economics, successfully undertaking courses in Cooking and Cake Decoration.
Aweena credits her attendance at two public events staged by the Guyana Marketing Corporation with contributing to the building of her clientele.
These days, she says, she serves a market that includes around one hundred regular clients. “It is an up and down situation. Some days we’ll have no requests. Other days we’ll have a rush,” Aweena says.
Over time the business has grown and while recent growth has been reined in by the advent of COVID-19, she and her two employees still persist.
If the advent of the pandemic has meant that many of the orders that she receives these days have shrunk from ‘party size’ to ‘family size’ orders, at least she is able to open for business every day. Her location in the upper reaches of the East Bank, notwithstanding, she continues to offer a free delivery service.
Aweena believes that her establishment has survived and grown during the COVID-19 pandemic primarily for two reasons. First, clients have come to appreciate the quality of her cooking and secondly, because of her customers’ awareness of her food safety standards. Much time, she says, is spent sanitising the establishment’s work areas and preparing food for the pot.
Aweena believes, too, that for small businesses like her own, survival has become a matter of applying customer-friendly strategies. For her it has been walking the delicate balance between absorbing rising prices for her purchases and keeping her own prices at a level that will not discourage customers. If you miss that balance, she says, you can find your business losing patronage.
During what she says is a difficult period for loyal customers Aweena has developed her own ‘give back’ mechanism, by topping up her food boxes. It is, she says, her way of thanking her customers for their loyalty.
She is, she says, thankful for a supportive husband who provides a generous subsidy for her enterprise by meeting the cost of electricity. Still, she says, the protracted pressures imposed by the uncertainties associated with the persistence of the coronavirus are not something that one can set aside easily.
It helps, she says, that she enjoys her job. She believes that the best things about a food service is the degree of creativity that you can bring to what you do as well as those positive responses that you get from your customers which tell you that they appreciate the role you play in making a difference in their lives.
Aweena Aulder Triple A’s Catering Establishment can be contacted on telephone number 604-0556 or 226- 5657
