Snack company in Guyana eyes local and export markets, offering ready business to farmers

Caribe Snackz, a new locally-owned company selling five varieties of packaged plantain and cassava chips, was launched on Friday with the promise of getting more Guyanese products into local and regional markets while also offering steady business to Guyana’s farmers.

The company was launched at the new Guyana Marketing Corporation (GMC) agro-processing facility at Parika on the East Bank of Essequibo. And according to company head, Chief Samsair, Caribe Snackz wants to produce 200,000 packs of chips weekly during its start-up phase.

To do so, Caribe Snackz has employed 25 people and has indirect linkages with many more including the farmers who supply the plantain and cassava needed to make the chips.

And once local and regional markets consume and demand the products as expected, Samsair said the company will expand distribution, potentially exporting Guyanese-made chips to markets in North America and Europe.

Chief Samsair:
 

"We will scale up significantly as we penetrate more markets."

  Samsair is also the local head of the world-renowned real estate firm, Century 21. And he said the decision to invest in this business stemmed from a diaspora investment call made by Guyana’s President, Dr. Irfaan Ali.

Aside from this chips venture, the company’s Chief Operation Officer, Dwayne Wade said Caribe Snackz will be more than a manufacturer of plantain and cassava chips. The goal, he said, is to transform the leased-facility, at least in part, to a snack manufacturing factory. And he believes this transformation can happen before the end of this year.

Meanwhile, Minister of Agriculture, Zulfikar Mustapha welcomed the investments, stating that such ventures are exactly what the government is encouraging and wants to support. He was optimistic that Caribe Snackz would generate more employment for farmers in the East Bank Essequibo community and boost the local economy.