Since 1999 the Mckenzie ‘clan’ have piloted a family firm named Sun Crest Farms Inc, through a local business climate that can throw up challenges with metronomic regularity. Setbacks notwithstanding, the enterprise has grown continually, arriving at a point where, today, it offers goods and services ranging from its Rainforest Honey and a range of fruit juices and baking flours milled from a variety of vegetables and ground provision, to landscaping services that turn out eye-catchingly manicured expanses of real estate.
If it is not altogether customary for local enterprises to undergo the level of diversification which Sun Crest Farms has undergone, that diversification, however, has been decidedly strategic in causing the company to arrive at its present level of growth.
The company’s designated spokesperson, Juanette McKenzie, possesses the persona of a businesswoman who can sell tropical clothing in the midst of a snowstorm – her articulation of the operational modus that obtains at Sun Crest Farms, reflecting an understanding of the firm that is impressive in its thoroughness.
One of three members of Sun Crest’s Board of Directors (there is no designated CEO), she occupies a position of unmistakable clout amongst siblings and other family members possessed of skills in all of the various disciplines necessary to run a business of the complexity of Sun Crest Farms. She concedes, though, that a long-practiced culture of respect for seniority continues to anchor the younger ‘guns’ to the family patriarch, her father, Jocelyn McKenzie. One gets the impression that his particular role is usually to bring finality to such business discourses underpinned by protracted, even if restrained exchanges, which might be driven by strongly-held differences of opinion.
Sun Crest began with a farming initiative which today embraces a total of around 60 acres of land under cultivation with one crop or another at West Canje, Berbice. Its growth derives from what Juanette says has been an unwavering commitment to ‘putting heads together’.
Diversification in the farming sector can come relatively easily when enlightened minds are applied to growth and expansion, and so, Juanette says, it has been with the Sun Crest brand. Some of the considerations that found their way into Sun Crest’s operations were the synergies obtained from decisions that took account of the nature of the business in which they had invested their resources and talents. They learnt not just to harmonise their operations to grow in sync with what was happening in the wider agricultural sector and in the various markets which they served, but also to fashion collaborative arrangements with others in the sector that might bring them gain. As agro-processors they took advantage of the seasonal nature of the fresh fruit industry to grow their own range of fruit juices and afterwards, to turn these into tasty and popular beverages.
Their Rainforest Honey, meanwhile, realised its continually expanded demand through strategic marketing that saw the product take its place in eye-catching displays at well-attended local product displays.
Continued growth and enhanced understanding of the vicissitudes of the market have enhanced their awareness of the importance of turning out customer-friendly products, a propensity that has caused them to pay equal measures of attention to product quality as they do to product presentation.
There is an evident pride that resonates in Juanette’s tone when she speaks of the relationships that Sun Crest have cemented over the years with farmers as well as with distributors of their various products and services.
Perhaps the most pointed manifestation of the versatility in the range of services reposes in its landscaping and agricultural consultancy services. Juanette says that the company possesses specialised skills in commercial and residential landscaping solutions including family-garden preparation and maintenance. “Our complete landscaping services,” she says, “include ongoing landscaping maintenance and lawn care services as well as major installation projects in specialised areas that include hardscapes, outdoor lighting, irrigation systems, erosion control, and drainage systems.”
The growth of the enterprise, Juanette says, has been largely a function of strategic partnerships with other companies that allow for the best possible outcomes for all of the parties. She believes that in the particular climate, partnerships are “the best way to go.” Here, she acknowledges, as well, the longstanding partnership which Sun Crest Farms has enjoyed with the Guyana Marketing Corporation (GMC), among other agencies, in their support for the marketing of Sun Crest products.
Last March, in the wake of the pall of gloom that had enveloped much of the business sector, Sun Crest effected a brief closure in March.
The company was not, however, about to be forced out of business by the COVID-19 pandemic. “We decided to publish our own safety manual, to put the safety measures in place and then to reopen. When the Food & Drugs [Government Analyst Food and Drug Department] visited our operations in November they gave us a completely clean bill of health following a thorough walk-through,” an understandably proud Juanette says.
