It has long been said to reduce your grocery bill; it may be best to grow your own.
Local, publicly listed, multiline group, Agostini, is hoping that its rebrand can help grow regional business and by proxy help the growth of Caribbean brands.
Chris Alcazar, CEO of the Agostini Groups’ consumer product companies, which were recently rebranded to Acado Foods and Acado Distribution, explained that the rebranding was not only built to bring the brands under one recognisable entity across the region, but also to supplement that growth.
“One thing we have not touched on at all in our rebranding exercises is about the fact that there is a drive on how you earn hard currencies for all of the Caribbean markets and where we do business. You’ve seen Massy and some of the other groups be able to go into the US or Colombia. Part of that comes back to what we’re doing in the region,” said Alcazar in an interview with the Sunday Business Guardian.
“As a big business in the region, the fact is we are trying to genuinely move along Caricom and how we connect it, and the work that our predecessors did in terms of Victor Mouttet and men like Arthur Lok Jack. Any work that they did in terms of trying to build the Caribbean as one region, and bringing that together. And for us, there’s still a lot of work to be done in the Caribbean or within Caricom.”
Alcazar said the group’s recent sales and purchase agreement to acquire Massy Distribution Jamaica was one the deals meant to push along that growth.
He said the rebranding would allow more people to identify some of the Acado group’s products such as Swiss, Catelli and Super Cow Milk as Caribbean brands and as such encourage more support within the region.
“We distribute rice, pasta, cheese, milk and milk powder. There are necessities in there, and we are trying to take that responsibly, take that very serious as a responsibility that we need to be there.
“And owning that responsibility is critical for us. And as far as we’re concerned, how we go to market, how we partner, how we do business, is really critical for us, in that we’re trying to make it simpler,” said Alcazar. “We are trying to provide very simple solutions to some very complex problems. And for us, it is about true partnership. “
He noted that there were many instances where these brands were being celebrated across the region.
“A lot of these brands, as far as people are concerned are Caribbean brands. And that’s exactly what we’re trying to do. Jamaica is a big market for us, a big market, very passionate people, very passionate culture. And we certainly want to be part of that. We’re very happy to get that business going on the ground. We’ve been doing business in Jamaica with partners for, I think, maybe going back almost 25 years. So the Swiss brand, for instance, has been there and does very, very well in Jamaica. But there is a lot more that we’re looking to do in terms of partnering in Jamaica,” he said.
Alcazar said this growth was particularly important given the country’s ongoing foreign exchange challenges as well as Caricom’s 25 by 2025 initiative which is geared towards reducing the Caribbean’s import bill by 25 per cent by 2025.
The Acado group CEO admitted it was challenging situation.
“I can say that, I have no influence over consumers’ demand, but I think that from a manufacturing aspect, we are very in tune with where we can be competitive and what we can do to replace imports, and there is a major drive on to do that. By going into manufacturing you’re not just making a decision today. It is not ‘let’s jump into manufacturing and open a plant. It takes long-term commitment. It’s a lot of investment.
“In most cases, what you find is that we have the appetite. Certainly, our group has the appetite and has the resources and we continue to look at opportunities to continue developing our portfolio of manufactured products within the region to be able to feed the region.
“That is absolutely a priority for us, not just to be able to supply to other Caricom islands, but to be able to look for opportunities to export to so many hard currency markets like The US, like the UK, like Canada, like South America,’ said Alcazar.
He said a perfect example of that for the Agostini group would be its Peardrax brand, which is manufactured right here in T&T and exported to countries, including the US, the UK and Canada.
“And we continue to grow that. We continue to grow our exports. And again, it is going into those hard currency markets with products that either might be unique to us or that we have some sort of competitive advantage to go after,” he said.
Alcazar had previously served as the president of the T&T Manufacturing Association President from 2017 to 2019. He said during that time the association recognised the foreign exchange and import challenges that would come and there had been moves to reduce such pressures. However, he noted that now more needed to be done.
“We certainly see ourselves as a regional business, but certainly as a company dealing with Trinidad and Tobago, we’re seeing a lot of success in that drive for export of manufactured products, and certainly something we work very hard at.
“As you may or may not know, I sat as the president of the T&T Manufacturers Association 2017 to 2019 and we did a lot of work just seeing this coming and understanding that we are part of the solution in terms of the manufacturers.”
He said the Acado had continued to push in that regard hoping to be a supplement to major industries across the islands.