During the course of a conversation with a group of agro processors last week, Stabroek Business learnt that across the country several hundred would-be entrepreneurs continue to be constrained in their ambitions on account of their inability to take their pursuits to the next level, that is to say beyond the stage of producing a few bottles of pepper sauce or ground seasoning in their kitchens and selling these to family and friends and at small stalls in the municipal markets.
What these producers mostly grumble about is what they see as the yawning gap between the fortunes of their own products and those which they see displayed on supermarket shelves and which they insist are, in some instances, qualitatively inferior to theirs.
We were, of course, more than a little surprised to find that some of our local agro processors were either not prepared to take account of the added value bestowed upon seasonings, sauces and condiments by attractive packaging and labelling or were insistent that the real problem is that the high-profile distribution outlets simply refuse to accept their products.
The latter of course is true not necessarily because the said distributors are inherently opposed to marketing locally produced items but because the presentation of the product is not only unlikely to attract positive customer attention but because the appearance of a product that is not visibly pleasing on the shelf might well result in a generally unfavorable customer judgment of the facility as a whole.
The lone Amerindian producer amongst the seven or eight that we had engaged accepted that products were more likely to catch the eye of consumers if they were attractively labelled and packaged but bemoaned the fact that in her village there were simply no facilities for those sorts of value-added pursuits.
This, of course, has been the problem with produce of all kinds coming out of the hinterland communities over the years. Each year, products manufactured in Amerindian communities have secured high marks for quality at GuyExpo and other national events. Where labelling and packaging are concerned, however, the rating is almost always very low.
This is where state entities like the Ministry of Agriculture and non-state ones like the Guyana Manufacturing & Services Association (GMSA) come in. These are the entities that understand what it takes to have our agro processed goods and other products secure higher levels of market acceptance both at home and abroad. Studies have shown that there are cases in which the cost of labelling and packaging come close to the cost of actual product manufacturing; the evident rationale being the understanding that in a significant number of cases the consumer buys the packaging rather than the product.
Here in Guyana, large companies with relatively high volumes of exports (rum is perhaps the best example) understand that they must spend considerable sums on labelling and packaging. Unfortunately, business size in the country’s manufacturing sector ranges from the rum companies to domestic kitchens. At the lower end of the spectrum the resources are simply not there to fund either high-volume manufacturing or packaging and labelling.
It is true that at both the public and private sector levels efforts have been made to sensitize small manufacturers to the virtue of adding value through labelling and packaging. That, however, is not enough. Neither the government nor the private has done anywhere near enough to place high-quality labelling and packaging technology at the disposal of small manufacturers even though there is evidence in some instances that that might well be the difference between having those products remain at the level of cottage industries rather than ascend to the status of an export. If it is a matter of affordability for individual producers the same would not apply in the case of government or, perhaps, a government/GMSA joint venture.
Here the idea might be to seek out the technology (perhaps in Brazil or the United States) and create an incubator that provides a modestly priced service to small businesses in the agro-processing sector, allowing them time to grow and to benefit from expanded local and international markets before asking them to pay market rates for the service.
Last month, the Ministry of Business launched its November 27-29 Business Exposition as a temporary replacement for the annual GuyExpo which will return next year as part of the country’s 50th Independence Anniversary. What the organizers – interestingly, the Ministry of Business and the GMSA – may well find is that if the country is to increase its non-traditional exports, it may well be necessary to commit more time and resources to providing more support to the small business sector. Apart from the fact that the time is probably due for a comprehensive report on the progress being made with the Small Business Bureau-driven US$5million SME project, next month’s Business Exposition might provide the ideal opportunity for the Ministry of Business and the GMSA to go beyond seminars and workshops in its commitment to creating a high-quality infrastructure to support small manufacturers in their product presentation pursuits, primarily though not exclusively, in the areas of labelling and packaging.
