There is no doubt that when it comes to producing for and feeding itself, Belize is far behind. Truth is, most of the everyday commodities we consume are imported, leading to a massive trade imbalance. But slowly, that's changing as businesses are taking the initiative and the risks to produce and market local products. But selling a local product doesn't always mean making it, and tonight, we'll take a look at Richard Harrison who operates the Verena's product line, and has found another way to compete, in a small way, with giants like Grace Food Products.
Alfonso Noble Reporting,
Stopping in at the operations plant of Verena's Products on the Western Highway we find workers packaging ketchup and cooking oil. These are two items in an entire product line, all produced from this small operation. Richard Harrison is the manager and he says there are some 9 products which he either manufactures or adds value to.
Richard Harrison, Manager - Verena's Products
"We have two basic operations. One of them is a food packaging and processing operation where we produce all of the Verena's products that are on the market right now. At the same time we have just recently started Harrison Chemicals, that is a whole line of household cleaning products that we are manufacturing here and we also do the value adding here. We have people who are filling the bottles, putting the labels on, basically packaging that's involved in that value added process with the olive oil. What we are doing here is a value adding operation. So we value add different stages depending on how competitive we can be with the different products. Like for example, this product right here is olive oil. Now of course we don't produce olives in Belize so basically what we have done is we have taken the olive oil, we have them in drums that we bring from Bores of Spain, so we bring the olive oil in drums from Spain and we package it here in Belize so its made affordable, its more affordable. Olive oil is an expensive product."
And while he makes olive oil more affordable, Harrison has come up with his own creations, such as bar-b- q and other sauces including his very own ketchup creation.
Richard Harrison,
"Our tomato ketchup, that's our own formula. That product there we basically put all our ingredients together, the tomato, the sugar-all the different ingredients that go into our tomato ketchup, our barbecue sauce we process right here, the spaghetti sauce, and the pizza sauce. We also process those things here; those are our own formulas."
And apart from his own formula, he also produced value added products. He imports large quantities of cooking and olive oils and repackage them. Seems simple, but he says there's money to be made here.
Richard Harrison,
"Value adding is profitable. There are certain obstacles and hurdles that we need to cross but those are growing pains and we are negotiating with our different stakeholders including the government of Belize to get some policies in place that give us incentives to do more of this value adding. There are a lot of other areas of opportunities where people can invest in value adding and make some money here in Belize."
And while he makes his money Harrison says that the enterprise of it all is what attracts him.
Richard Harrison,
"We have to make a living and I am the kind who likes to take an entrepreneurial risk. I have worked before. I have taken jobs before when I needed to build up income for myself before I could invest but I like the entrepreneurial risk. I am here and working hard and putting people to work as well. We already have twelve fulltime employees and we have three or four part time people that come in when we have extra production that we need to do and as we expand our operation, we will employ more people and I like that."
Harrison says that next year he plans to automate the production of his ketchup and other sauces.
