Pleasurable flavours now available in big supermarkets

… on its way to the export market

` PLEASURABLE Flavours’ is a Linden-based business which is located in Amelia’s Ward and founded by Dianna Plowell, the matriarch of the Plowell family, Known for its wide range of products including pepper sauce, green seasoning, all-purpose sauce, sweet pepper relish and other products, `Pleasurable Flavours’ is the first Linden-based brand of products that has been made available in supermarkets across Guyana.

This is indeed a big hallmark, not only for the Amelia’s Ward business but for the mining town . It is which can be deemed as an encouragement for all local manufacturers who are afraid to take up the mantle of increasing the quality and quantity of their products.

Dianna proudly disclosed to the Pepperpot Magazine that the products are now available in DSL Supermarket, Nigel’s Supermarket, Real Value, and will soon be found on the shelves in Massy and Bounty Supermarkets.

HUMBLE BEGINNINGS
For her, this is a great achievement knowing that ‘Pleasurable Flavours’ started from humble beginnings. “I did a lot of walking around for two years, and then like two years ago we started in the small shops in Linden,” Dianna said. She added that the business started when she realised that she could not adequately provide for her family after her daughter was accepted into a prestigious university in the United States. She stated that after praying about the matter, she was moved to put her hands **** to use and the idea for the business was born.

“I got up from the bed and went to the fridge and I had a big bottle of [homemade] pepper. My father had a lot of these high wine bottles so I threw it out into these bottles and went around and I sold all out that afternoon. “I didn’t have any seal or any label or anything, the next day I went down the road and buy more pepper and blend and did that for a while and as the money came in, I increased in amount and quality and that’s exactly how I started,” the entrepreneur revealed.

From then to now, Dianna now has six flavours of pepper sauce and later added several other seasonings and products. `Pleasurable Flavours’ also manufactures ready-mixed fruits for cakes, local confectionaries such as plantain chips, ‘chicken-foot’ and tamarind balls. For the holidays, the business aims to launch its ketchup and dry-shake seasoning. She revealed that each product has a fruit as the main ingredient which makes it so unique and finger licking.

Challenges
For the business to progress, Dianna had to make significant improvements to the quality of the packaging, in order to capture the attention of the big supermarkets. This took a period of trial and error. The greatest challenge in doing so, she said, was acquiring quality packaging materials and most importantly, the containers. “That’s a bit challenging not only for me but for all manufactures and entrepreneurs. Finding the bottles is challenging but God has been so good to us that he has been helping us in that regard,” she said, adding, “we are in the process of getting our own shipment for containers for our fruits for cake and we are also acquiring our own bottles.”

As it relates to sourcing their ingredients, Dianna said that she would acquire large amounts when they are in season and store them in large quantities so that she never runs out. “You see when five fingers were in season, we would raid all the trees and the five fingers that people wasting. we would pay for it and store them because we have a lot of freezers,” she said.

Another challenge the local entrepreneur is facing is battling the stigma attached to local products. She revealed that the local products would be isolated into a particular corner in the big supermarket and shoppers would be hesitant to go there. “People have a stigma that local products are degrading and so they don’t go there. So [supermarkets] shouldn’t isolate it, they should have it with all the other products, let them try it and then check to see what it is and go back for more… we got through with it not being isolated at Nigel’s and our product moved very fast there,” she said.

GROWTH
Despite these challenges, Dianna said that looking back, the business has surely grown over the last five years and she is proud of what it has become. She now has five persons in her employ and also has a sister company called `Perfect Finish Janitorial Services’ which is creating jobs for young women. The service provides cleaning services to homes and other buildings in half the time that it would take to do. She is encouraging Lindeners to cash in on the service during the upcoming Christmas season.

After five years, `Pleasurable Flavours’ will now be acquiring a loan to aid in the shipment of packaging material. While the financial boom has not yet been experienced, Dianna added that the business now sustains itself. From her many training sessions, she learned that a business takes 10 years to fully progress, where the entrepreneur can relax.

For the progress made at being at the halfway mark, Dianna said that she is astounded at the tremendous progress “I really see myself starting another business in the next five years and this one is totally managing itself. I would encourage everyone to push themselves and don’t wait for anyone to push them… don’t see yourself for where you are, but where you want to be because God wouldn’t let you down,” she said.

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