The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

THE Bahamas Agricultural and Industrial Corporation (BAIC) says its partnership with a major food wholesaler aims to expand distribution networks for local agro-processors.

Leroy Major, BAIC’s chairman, said the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Milo B Butler and Sons Ltd will help “empower food processors” producing Bahamian products and move the Government closer to fulfilling one of its sustainable development goals.

Pointing to the success of BAIC’s “taste and tell” event in April, which served as a “catalyst” for future partnerships with food distributors, Mr Major added: “The signing of this MoU marks a culmination of months of negotiation to arrive at this mutual agreement and understanding for Milo Butler and Sons to become the primary distributor and access point to the Bahamian market for goods and produce grown, manufactured by food processors, who are clients of BAIC.”

Jevon Butler, Milo Butler and Sons’ sales and marketing manager, said: “Analysing our business model, Milo Butler and Sons recognises that our company is heavily dependent on imports..... Economies of scale have made it cheaper to import and resell goods to the public, rather than fully embrace local farmers, fishermen and manufacturers.

“At the beginning of our fiscal year 2022 to 2023, a conscientious decision was taken by the Board of Directors, requiring that 25 percent of product sold through Milo Butler and Sons be Bahamian grown, produced and manufactured within the next three years.”

BAIC is also beefing up its agro-processing capabilities and training methods to help food processors around The Bahamas. Tonjia Burrows, its senior food processing officer, said: “We are about to establish a cooperative, and one of the things that we are focusing on in the cooperative is safety; a place for them to be able to process.

“That’s why BDB (Bahamas Developemnt Bank) and SBDC (Small Business Development Centre) are so important because we would need those type of environments for us to be able to process properly. Persons in the Family Islands have been trained in the past.

“We did food processing workshops throughout the Bahamas a couple of years ago, and we’re about to embark on them again. Mostly, they’re done in high schools now, but we are getting back into going back to the Family Islands and here locally.”

Troy Sampson, BAIC’s general manager, said: “Part of BAIC’s responsibilities will be to assess the processing facilities of all those who are seeking to be qualified. They will have to meet a particular standard because you’re now talking about transmitting food product to the public, and there’s certain liability that comes to Milo Butler and Sons with that, and to BAIC and to the processor with that.”