More than ten years ago, Aadil Baksh was handed the reins of leadership of Imam Bacchus & Sons, one of the most successful private sector business enterprises in the history of Essequibo. Today, serving as both Chairman of the company’s Board of Directors and its Chief Executive Officer, he continues to be driven by the legacy of his father and uncle, the men who preceded him.
Aadil belongs to the third generation of a family which, more than sixty five years ago, ‘swapped’ the Essequibo island of Wakenaam for an alternative home at Plantation Affiance, on the Essequibo coast. That the name Imam Bacchus & Sons is now known across Guyana and the region as a whole, attests to the fact that the family’s decision to migrate has paid handsome dividends.
Imam Bacchus & Sons is more than a mere trading name. It has come to symbolize an institution that is synonymous with growth, consolidation, and possessing a philanthropic disposition that has left its mark on the Essequibo Coast.
The business complex that is Imam Bacchus & Sons sits on more than three hundred acres of what used to be a sugar estate. The founders’ first investments, at Affiance, were in the rice industry. The original rice mill was acquired from a British businessman named Mr Seymour. Even as the company has, over time, expanded into other entrepreneurial pursuits including light manufacturing, wholesale and retail food distribution, poultry production, rice, vegetable, cattle farming, and more recently, real estate, it has remained anchored to the rice industry.
There is no mistaking the tightly-knit nature of what is, in a sense, an old-fashioned family business, even if its entrepreneurial outlook is reflective of an eye for looking to the future. The company is run by a board of directors which comprises entirely of family members. Aadil Baksh, who is a US-trained architect, is a grandson of the founder.
Mindful of the well-being of the community and of course of their own legacy, the family runs the Bacchus Nursery and Primary schools at Affiance. At another entrepreneurial extreme, it owns the distributorship for John Deere, the brand name of Deere & Company, an American corporation that manufactures agricultural, construction, and forestry machinery, as well as diesel engines and heavy equipment.
Imam Bacchus, its other investments notwithstanding, has become synonymous with the rice industry, though ironically, its interest in cultivation is relatively modest. Every year, however, the company purchases huge amounts of paddy which it mills then trades through its own supermarkets and in retail stores and municipal markets across the country. Farmers on the Essequibo Coast value the efficient business relationship ‘model’ they enjoy with the company, particularly the on-the-spot settlement of bills for paddy delivered to the factory.
Even successful business enterprises, however, have their challenges. These days, Imam Bacchus & Sons shares with the rest of the business community the challenge of seeing off the COVID-19 pandemic. The company’s CEO appears thoughtful in the situation. He speaks in measured tones about the points of impact of the pandemic insofar as his operations are concerned. Both the nursery school and the gym are closed, as are the activities that usually take place on the company-owned playing field. The restaurant is providing a ‘take-out service’ only. Manufacturing and distribution pursuits, however, continue under a regime that is acutely mindful of the protocols associated with managing the pandemic. The company’s 300 workers, its CEO declares, have all been retained though a rotation system that has now been implemented. The Western Union money transfer service which the company operates remains up and running. The company also operates a second Western Union branch at Anna Regina.
Over time the company has built steadily on its manufacturing standards, positioning itself to become food exporters. Its chowmein enjoys markets in the USA and Canada and in parts of the Caribbean. It ‘boasts’ of what it clearly considers to be a feather in its cap that it has not only retained, but increased its diaspora chowmein market, the ravages of the coronavirus notwithstanding.
Further growth is ‘on the cards’. An Anna Regina branch of the Imam Bacchus and Sons supermarket is being contemplated. It is a decision that factors in a job-retention plan that will shift workers to other locations rather than retrench them. A further supermarket investment is being contemplated.
Back in 2016 the company had taken its first tilt at developing land for housing, developing sixteen plots of land at Queenstown, Essequibo Coast, and afterwards selling them to families seeking lands for housing. Arising out of what they deemed to have been a successful business venture they are in the process of undertaking a similar venture at Affiance. Initial work has begun on preparing forty four plots and to install all weather roads and drainage and, subject to the support of the National Democratic Council, water and electricity. While extending the company ‘the whole nine yards’ by constructing homes, Aadil, a trained architect, is balancing the significant material gain of offering homes for sale against what he sees as the stressful pursuit of the company having to continually oversee, over a protracted period of time, the erection of homes that measure up to the standards which he envisages.
Growth continues to be the company’s preoccupation. While fruit cultivation at the company farm provides raw material for beverages served at its restaurant, Aadil disclosed that export prospects to external markets for passion fruit, sorrel and coconuts are currently under consideration. Trinidad & Tobago currently provides what he believes are interesting possibilities.
The migration of skilled workers from Essequibo to Georgetown in search of better opportunities (these moves frequently turn out to be ‘wild goose chases’) has confronted the company with labour shortage challenges. This circumstance limits the range of recruitment choices available to the company.
Nor do the positions of Chairman and CEO mean that Aadil is a ‘one man show.’ He concedes that his father, Salam, having piloted the ship for half a century, still has a difficulty moving too far from the ‘wheel’. The family, however, has learnt to draw well-defined lines between the virtues of collective effort and the counterproductive usurpation of roles. It is, Aadil says, a family business which makes everyone entitled not just to make recommendations and give advice but also to be available to contribute to critical decision-making. “That is the nature of a family business,” he says.
