For various reasons, Rhadika Basdeo makes a compelling case for her being named by the Ministry of Agriculture as the country’s Agro-Processor of The Year. Her far from unchallenging entrepreneurial journey had begun in March 2021 when COVID-19 was in the throes of performing its frenzied Danse Macabre and when the faint-hearted had set aside even their livelihoods and fled in terror. For Rhadika, confronted with the responsibility of motherhood, not even the globally fearsome malady could deter her. Her decision to confront the killer, she reasoned, was altogether a function of her circumstances. What obtains today is a successful agro processing enterprise named Basdeo dynasty, and, the Proprietrix declares, “It was worth it.”
What exists today is a thriving enterprise that had derived from circumstances that had spelt gloom, perhaps even doom, in the first instance. Rhadika’s father, a vendor in the Bourda Market, had posed her a business challenge. The sizeable volumes of mangoes harvested from the family farm that had been ‘doing well’ at the Market had become confronted with a sharp dip in demand. The emergency demanded a family ‘huddle’ out of which came the idea of a commercial ‘excursion’ into Mango Achar. It was here that the family’s jaunt down the Agro Processing road began.
Nor is Rhadika dissatisfied with the progress that her venture has made in the entrepreneurial realm, having benefitted from certification by the Guyana National Bureau of Standards, exposure to the popular Agro Fest event in Barbados, participation in several local product displays and most recently, becoming the recipient of Guyana Marketing Corporation’s Agro Processor of the Year Award. Rhadika attributes her meteoric rise to the unstinting support of her father, Gopaul. “He played a major role in the success of the business during the height of the pandemic and onward,” she told the Stabroek Business.
Experiences like participation in the Barbados Agro Fest event, high-profile product display events in Guyana and, most recently, being ‘tagged’ Agro Processor of The Year by the Guyana Marketing Corporation (GMC) has done much to burnish Rhadiks’s own self-esteem even as the popularity of her range of products has grown. Her’s has been an incremental journey some episodes of which she recalls clearly. It was the glut of mangoes and her exchanges with her father that led her in the direction of manufacturing Achar in the first place. The range of products grew to include Pepper Sauce, Garam Masala, Turmeric, Plantain Flour, Nutmeg, Geera, Split Peas Powder and Salted Fish.
Having grown increasingly aware of the virtues of product presentation, Rhadika also became ‘pushed’ in the direction of eye-catching packaging and labeling and the acquisition of the prestigious ‘Made in Guyana’ seal. According to Rhadika, much of her success is also due to participation in various, often demanding training programmes offered by the GMC and the Guyana National Bureau of Standards. The two institutions have also been instrumental in affording Rhadika opportunities to enhance her packaging and to secure strategic shelf space on the premises of local product outlets.
It was, she says, her continued ‘following up’ with these institutions that provided her with access to proper packaging, shelf space in supermarkets and creation of her labels, all of which, she told the Stabroek Business, was facilitated by the Guyana Marketing Corporation. From her humble beginning that entailed ‘shopping around’ to secure what is commonly described as ‘the best bargains’ in raw materials, Rhadika now enjoys the privilege of having supplies delivered to her door.
Arising out of her ‘battle-tested experience’, Rhadika recommends to emerging operators that they not wait until everything ‘seems right’ before they ‘take the plunge.’ She believes that the best option is to “begin where you are.”
