After much trial and error, Tasmin Pellew believes her signature instant split-pea cook-up rice now has the right texture and taste and can fulfil the cravings of anyone who needs hot cook-up, but does not have the time to make it.
In fact, she says the cook-up has been well received in Tennessee and New York in the US, and while at home it is not such a big hit as Guyanese might not yet be open to premade cook-up, she promises that they will need it when they migrate. She is hoping to have the cook-up available in two other US states.
The cook-up, which is produced under her Linden-based company Taz Foods Manufac-turing, is nicely packaged and can be found on the shelves of Andrew’s Supermarket in Georgetown and the Pauline’s Supermarket and Jermaine and Sons in Linden.
Pellew, who is now working on fine tuning instant dhall, was one of the awardees of the 2022 Economic Development Accel-erator implemented by the Guyana Economic Development Trust in partnership with US Agency for International Development (USAID). Through that programme she received a US$30,000 prize to expand her capabilities for export.
Apart from the cook-up other products produced by her company include bottled green seasoning, a garlic sauce and pepper sauces. “We are working on it, these things take time,” Pellew said of the dhall.
“I do not like to work a nine-to-five job, anything that I have to sit still and don’t have the freedom to move around, that is not what I like,” she said about her decision to move into the realm agro-processing.
Wanting to generate her own income and create generational wealth were also factors that played a part in her establishing Taz Foods.
She got into the business of agro-processing in July 2015 and while she was conducting research for the instant cook-up she produced the green seasoning and peppers and other items.
“But that really wasn’t my passion because even though I was doing it and I was making money from it I am always the kind of person who wants to do something different. So … I was still doing the research in terms of how to get the instant food on the market,” she said.
She finally got it to where she was satisfied enough to put it on the market.
“With trial and error and I mean a lot of trial and error, eventually we got it right. We worked out a recipe, we worked out a formula and the rest is history,” she said.
The Guyana Defence Force (GDF) was her test market for the instant cook-up. “We never had a complaint [when tested in the GDF] and that is how we knew we were on to something good,” she boasted.
Training programmes
Pellew is not one to sit down and be comfortable with the idea that she knows it all as she revealed that over the years she took advantage of many training programmes.
“What I did, because I knew how to produce, but in terms of managing it and getting it direct to the market [I had to be trained],” she admitted.
She shared that when she decided to take it seriously, “in terms of a business… and not a hustle” she decided to do a lot of training programmes.
The last she was involved in was with the Economic Development Trust, which she said gave the business a push in terms of “getting us really, really ready for the international market”. She was steered in the direction of exporting as opposed to just looking at the local market.
“Locally, we Guyanese are own critics. We do have some favourable responses and then you have the regular ‘oh I ain’t guh buy no instant food’. It is kind of a mixed reaction, the young people are more gravitating to it, verses the older generation; they are not up for it,” she said.
But she has not given up on the older generation. In her pitch to them she informs that she uses the oldest method of drying things. “We call it dehydration but it is using the oldest method of drying like how they dried salt fish long ago; it is just like that, the only difference is it is [done] using modern technology,” she informed.
She said no form of preservative is used in the cook-up.
‘Hot cakes’
Talking about the international market, Pellew came alive so to speak as she said the reaction has been more than favourable.
As it is right now, Pellew said, she does not have enough hands to ship to the US, that is how good the market it is.
“And that is something the Economic Development Trust taught us: that you might have to work your way back to get the recognition for your product because it is not selling here but in the US it is going like hot cakes,” she said.
Reflecting on her journey to agro-processing Pellew shared that she studied “four whole years at the University of Guyana, wish I can get them back” before she answered her call and attended the Guyana School of Agriculture (GSA).
At UG, she studied public management but even then, she knew she had a knack for entrepreneurship as she shared she was unemployed at the time and in order to get to classes she purchased a big box of pens and sold them. “I sold a pen for $100 and every day I had a target of 30 pens and I would sell my 30 pens because I have to go and I have to come,” she shared.
Asked about her decision to study public management, Pellew with a laugh responded, “I am going to be honest with you, I was looking for the easy way out”.
She was 32 years old when she decided to attend the GSA and she said people asked her if she was “seriously going on that campus with them lil children. And when I go on the campus they use to call me the granny but I was quite happy with that name.”
Following her studies, she went straight into agro-processing and started on the seasoning as she conducted the research for the cook-up rice, as she needed to subsidise her income.
Pellew’s business partner is her mother, whom she said has been her backbone throughout the process from “trial and error to everything, she has been there but she is not like a front runner she is like a silent investor”.
She has a factory and a staff of five and her 12-year-old is also an integral part in the business.
The business woman is not yet comfortable, as she shared she wants about five products on the market and “maybe then I will be comfortable”.
In the meantime, she said, she is “constantly doing research, constantly playing around with a few things”.
Her year-end goal is to have the dhall on the market and in another five years she hopes to have five products on the international market.
She is confident that today she is where she belongs as she said she “eats, sleeps and dreams this” and she is constantly doing research.
Pellew recently attended an agro festival in Barbados. She hopes to get into that market as it is easy to ship to that island. She was hoping to tie up arrangements with at least two supermarkets in that island.
In the US, most persons order online through West Indian Mart and their packages are shipped directly to them.
