Jamaican businesswoman Kareema Muncey is returning to Guyana with plans to partner with locals to expand her well known Home Choice Enterprises (HCE) brand.
HCE, this year’s winner of the Jamaica Manufacturers and Exporters Association’s Best Medium Size Manufacturer award, has already secured one deal with a local company and is hoping that a co-packing agreement with another will be realized soon.
“I came to look for raw material and secured a deal with seafood. I am dealing with a supplier. I spoke to my distributor this morning – Sun Foods – and this looks very promising for us,” Muncey, who was a part of a recent visiting Jamaican private sector team, led by their Minister of Industry, Investment and Commerce, Aubyn Hill, told Sunday Stabroek in an interview.
“We have also spoken to PET bottles… and plan to manufacture and distribute in Guyana. The intention, for the long term, is to co-pack in Guyana. And as business and the country grows and we determine the feasibility, we will decide on if to send the raw materials to Guyana and get it done there,” she added.
With a passion for business since a child, Muncey has been in business for some 22 years and started her now multi-million-dollar generating business with just US$50.
Her parents were small-business entrepreneurs and sold different items before specialising in jewellery-making, a skill she also acquired.
Selling homemade juices from local fruits and racks to hang pots in Jamaica’s New Kingston Flea Market with her mother created a yearning in her to venture out on her own someday.
Muncey got married in her latter teenage years and bore four children. She became a housewife but was propelled into again doing what she always wanted and she opened a jewellery establishment. When the business from that venture slowed because of importation issues, she looked to her next venture.
She said she came to Guyana sometime in 1988 with her siblings and seeing the abundance of seafood, she bought 50lbs of shrimp to take back with her to Jamaica, just knowing that it would be used in some area of business.
Pepper shrimp, a Jamaican delicacy of preserved/dried white and yellow bellied shrimp seasoned with pepper and other spices, was made with the first investment and Muncey packaged it herself in clear plastic bags and walked and sold it.
She continued as the money doubled and tripled but faced several setbacks, from theft by employees and spoilage of large quantities of shrimp, to exploitation from large companies.
Yet she persisted and now her brand is recognised throughout Jamaica.
The company’s profile states that it has been in business for the past 20 years.
“We specialize in the processing and packaging of innovative food items such as Peppered Shrimp, Shrimp Soup, Shrimp Fritters Mix, Lime & Lemon Juice, Ginger Extract, Indian Curry Powder, Pepper Sauces, Solomon Gundy, and other condiments.,” it states.
It says while the business started as a sole trader in 1999, it became a Limited Liability Company in May 2004 and has a growing client base consisting of supermarkets and retail stores across the island of Jamaica, along with distributors in Canada and the United States. It also won the Best New Product Award for its Lemonade Ginger Drink at the 2018 Jamaica Manufacturers Expo.
“…Home Choice Enterprises Limited, through our mission statement, has proven that we “Provide high-quality Jamaican products to both local and overseas customers with a continuous improvement of quality and total customer satisfaction. It is envisioned that the company will expand its customer base throughout Jamaica and the international market by developing a strong Jamaican brand name,” it adds.
Boasting of its renowned accolades, HCE informed that it has won the Jamaica Manufacturer Award for the Best Small and Medium-sized Manufacturer in 2007 and 2020. HCE products have also been nominated four times by the Jamaica Observer Food Awards — in 2003 for its Boneless Salt fish and Peppered Shrimps, in 2006 for its Peppered Shrimps Chutney, in 2007 for its Pepper Shrimps Fritters Mix, and in 2012 for its Ginger Extract.
On Saturday October 8, Home Choice Enterprises was bestowed with the Jamaica Manufacturers and Exporters Association’s Best Medium Size Manufacturer award for 2021.
The Association is similar to the Guyana Manufacturing and Services Association (GMSA) and is that country’s leading industry association, serving as the voice of exporters, manufacturers, service providers, and micro, small, and medium enterprises.
Muncey said that for the manufacturing sector in her country the big thing is branding. “When you hear brands and Jamaica things come to mind automatically. Grace and Lasco and you think of all of their food products. You hear Home Choice and you think pepper shrimp. Our market is a niche market,” she said, even as she noted that Guyana is not yet big on branding.
“I see Guyana on the move, big move but I don’t see the focus much on branding. That should be looked at because you have to establish yourself and create that name. It is very important,” she posited.
She said that being an active part of the Jamaica private sector, she was motivated to come to Guyana, although this country holds bittersweet memories for her.
In 2013, her eldest child, Mujahid Muhammed, who had married a Guyanese girl and moved here permanently, was electrocuted while attempting to connect a water pump in front his Garden of Eden, East Bank Demerara home. He was only 30 years old at the time.
Fighting to hold back tears, an emotional Muncey said that when she heard this newspapers’ name, it “brought back all sorts of feelings of my lovely boy. I remember someone sending me the link and when I clicked on it, there it was in the Stabroek News that my boy was gone. It is so vivid that being here is bittersweet.”
But she said that coming back has not only given her closure regarding her son’s untimely passing, given that as Muslims, her son was buried before the family could come for the funeral, it has shown her that Guyana could be a place where she too can get into meaningful partnerships and expand the family’s business.
She further pointed out that the Guyana trip with along with her minister and fellow investors was “quite fruitful” and she was able to meet with potential partners.
She plans to return soon to begin work on the Home Choice Enterprises (Guyana) business, which has already been registered, and hopes that the entity will one day also be recognised as one of the big brands here.
