Some weeks ago, long before he had even got his feet wet insofar as the agro-processing industry is concerned, 28 year-old Adaiah Fyffe took the decision to get himself and his Wild Rupununi dehydrated sweet fruit condiments to last month’s Barbados Agro Fest event. If it may have appeared to the casual observer that Fyffe may have been jumping the gun, not having even, as yet, established the infrastructure to get a reliable production line going, Fyffe thought differently.
Prior to leaving for Barbados, with no more than a few hundred packets of his dehydrated pineapple snacks, Fyffe had only just begun to get the attention of the local market, his breakthrough distribution deal afforded him by N&S Mattai. Several weeks before departing for Barbados, Fyffe had shared his story with the Stabroek Business (SN December 16, 2022), providing details of the challenges that he had continually faced through the various stages of trying to get the attention of the local market. Even before that, he had been faced, first, with the challenge of finding startup capital, and afterwards, for keeping pace with the continually rising costs of manufacturing and marketing.