Roopan Ramotar retains a generous measure of optimism about the long-term outcome of his investment in the coconut industry notwithstanding what, up until now, has been his failure to break into the regional coconut water market. His most recent effort, late last year to market his Rooster brand in Trinidad and Tobago now appear to have been extinguished in disappointment, his last shipment having been rejected on food safety grounds.
He holds the view that the sanction placed on the product could be partially a function of the twin-island Republic’s inclination towards protectionist tendencies which both the letter and spirit of the Treaty of Chaguaramas frown upon. More than that, and without delving too deeply into the details of what he says was a soured deal with an unnamed one-time Trinidadian business partner, he does not rule out the possibility that it could have been an act of revenge. The man, he said, had walked away from what had once been an intended partnership brooding and vowing to ensure that the Rooster brand does not take root in that particular coconut market.
Whatever the real reason, Ramotar says that he is yet to be handed a persuasive reason why the shipment of coconut water cleared on safety grounds in both Guyana and Jamaica ended up being black-marked in Trinidad and Tobago and denied marketing clearance there.
