In the days leading up to Christmas, often the kitchen becomes the most trafficked space in the house. But with a scarcity of key ingredients, like sugar and cheese, there may be less baking and food prep than anticipated this Belizean holiday. Jomarie Lanza toured grocery stores today to find out what's going on with the sugar shortage, and that Happy Cow cheese that seems to have gone out to pasture. Here's what she found out.
What is a Belizean Christmas without a smoked savory ham, ice cold rum popo, and traditional white and black cake, made from scratch and baked to perfection?
It's a belly full for everyone in the home, but by the looks of things lately, Belizeans may have to do without dessert this year due to a sugar shortage on the market.
After touring popular grocery stores today we discovered that sugar isn't the only highly sought out commodity at the moment. It turns out that there is also a scarcity of Happy Cow cheese as well. It's one of the primary ingredients in a Belizean cheese dip, and many buyers have been on edge lately as Christmas day draws nearer.
Dwayne Neal, Store Supervisor
"For the last couple of months its been a real drag here in 88 because a lot of customers are looking forward to make cake and dip and stuff like that so it puts a real drag on the market right now."
"From what I heard the sugar scarcity is most of the importers are taking it over to the border, and stuff like that."
Jo
"But we notice that you guys put a 3 pound per family limit and a one block limit per family because of the scarcity."
Dwayne Neal, Store Supervisor
"Yes because we are trying to let everybody get at least something enough for their homes so they could at least see the Christmas as normal."
Even if there is a buying limit to sugar and cheese, it doesn't make up for the fact that there simply isn't enough to go around. So what will shoppers resort to? One man told us that he thinks its time GOB finds a solution, and fast.
Tyrone Luriano, Shopper
"First of all I'm a traditional Belizean Christmas is the time when we get together with our families. You know we want to eat the traditional white cake black cake, rum popo or ham or turkey and so on. And if you look at all of those things I mentioned most of them include some type of sugar to some value and so usually during this time people are looking for sugar almost throughout Belize in all corners of Belize so not being able to find sugar I've been searching for days now all the way up to ladyville into Belize city and no stores seem to have sugar at this time."
"I find it atrocious that I know food scarcity is a global issue but I never thought that it would be where a country produces a product and we won't be able to have that product to supply our domestic consumers you know. I hope the Belizean people are paying attention to this I believe the government of Belize need to do something about this sugar scarcity. I know there was some talk about negotiations between sugar suppliers and the government of Belize asking them to intervene. I don't know why it's taking them so long to do so."
One store clerk, in charge of weighing and marking the sugar on the shelves, told us that she noticed a few weeks ago that fewer and fewer sacks of the product began coming in, and it has caused disquiet among customers who check in daily to see if more is available.
Delanie Cano, Store Clerk
"This was like about two or maybe three weeks ago when we were only getting ten sacks maybe about five sacks per week right so then no sugar started coming in and only brown sugar and then up to like a while back we got sugar but it's only certain people who get it not everybody. So we don't have enough to give every person that comes in and asks for it."
"To be honest everybody wants to bake, everybody wants to make treats for Christmas and it is literally impossible. The brown sugar doesn't work as good as the white sugar does so it's a big problem right now."
As we have reported, plantation sugar is scarce because it is being smuggled over to Mexico and Guatemala due to its low controlled price - which is far cheaper than market prices in these neighboring countries. BSI has been clamoring for a price increase, but government has resisted.
Retailers tell us that Happy Cow will not be back in regular supply in January.
