…to market, promote local products
THE New Guyana Marketing Corporation (NGMC) on Saturday launched its “IS WE OWN: Guyana Shop” corner at the Coss Cutter Supermarket at Farm on the East Bank of Demerara. The initiative, which features over 40 local products, was launched as a way to market and promote locally produced agro products.
The Guyana section will feature various food items such as spices, barbeque sauces, carsreep, peppers, chips, juices and many other locally produced items.
General manager of the GMC, Ida Sealy-Adams, said that the idea was to make the presence of local products known; further, she noted that it’s a way to push local products, and to ensure that the products are able to reach a wider demographic of Guyana.
“This initiative we believe is necessary. Guyana’s local-produce section is one that is vast, yet many persons are not aware of the products that we have. So we thought why not have sections in supermarkets to showcase our own local products, so [that] persons when they go shopping would know that they are there.” Said Sealy-Adams.
Further, she related that the collaborator Coss Cutter has, from the beginning, been very supportive of the initiative and stated that she hopes that other supermarkets will follow suit.
Managing-Director Amar Persaud of Coss Cutters said that Guyana’s products should be displayed, explaining that although there are many products produced locally, they are not marketed as widely as international products and thus he saw the need to give those products the platform to be displayed.
Speaking with Simone Peters, entrepreneur behind “Country Style Products,” one of the local producers, she praised the initiative by the GMC, noting that it helps with marketing, and being able to take their products to a wider demographic.
“For small entrepreneurs or agro processors like us, sometimes when you go directly to the supermarket you get problems getting in because they would prefer business to go through agencies such as the GMC, because they know that any business coming through the GMC would already have all the certifications and would have gone through the criteria to be shelved and all that. It makes our jobs easier, because when we go through them and they go to face the supermarket now,” said Peters.
She said that in many instances, agro processors like herself have nowhere to market their products but at the street corners, and she believes that the initiative by the GMC to give them a platform to be able to market their products to reach a larger volume of their target group is one that is much needed and much appreciated.
