Post by Trade Coach on Apr 16, 2013 18:04:46 GMT 1
Take a turn, flour.
Cassava and other root vegetables are on their way to becoming a household staple in the form of bread.
Cassava whole wheat and multigrain breads took root last year at Hi-Lo Food Stores, Tru Valu supermarkets and Pricesmart at around $13 per loaf.
The Trinidad and Tobago Agribusiness Association (TTABA) which held its cassava signing ceremony last week at the Normandie Hotel, St Ann’s, not only gave one year contracts to 38 cassava farmers and five bakers for its Farmers Pride brand of specialty cassava bread, but hopes for increased local food production and income for local farmers.
Speaking with the Business Express last week, TTABA’s Chairman Joe Pires and Ag Chief Executive Officer Neil Gosine spoke of the vision that the new board, which was elected in September last year, has for the non-profit TTABA.
Pires said the board came in with a different vision of how TTABA would work and so restructuring the company started with the help of then CEO Vassel Stewart. However Stewart resigned and Gosine, who represents the Export Association on the board, offered his services on a six-month trial basis.
The new Ag CEO would take them on a path to a total restructuring and away from the previous approach.
Pires said he was on the board a few months before he became chairman in September and he and the whole board saw the tremendous potential there was for agriculture products if they chose five or six products, work with them and when they become good, work on developing others.
“We have a real good team of 13 made up of people from different backgrounds and at the end of the day we are representing farmers organisations but we are working to ensure that TTABA’s vision will continue to be. At least every year we focus on at least three to four new commodities.
“So that five, 10 years from now we would have tackled 20 to 30 new commodities and have a sustainable path where they can develop agriculture in Trinidad to a level where we have self security in certain key commodities and actually generating exports and earning foreign exchange.
“TTABA feels that the bread alone is a market that we can develop. We recognise that while there is a market for the cassava fries, we wanted to do something unique which is the cassava bread.
“Neil and his team – the Research and Development team (at TTABA) – worked for the last four or five months on a formula for the bakers to produce a good bread,” he said.
The bread was put on the market last year but TTABA felt that they needed to use a scientific means of establishing the specialty bread, he said.
So a cost to produce was worked out in relation to the demand for the product by the supermarkets and then that was used to calculate the amount of cassava needed and equated it to the amount of land needed and then labour needed according to acreage.
“That was never done before. We launched the bread and we hoped that everyone bought it at this price, that is what we did before,” he said.
Gosine said this was an opportunity for farmers to increase their income by increasing their ability to supply.
“Before we would have farmers restrict how many acres they would put under production because there were limits to the market,” Gosine explained.
And though TTABA has been supporting the bakers,TTABA is not, and does not want to be involved in the distribution and baking of the bread.
Pires said but they have been supporting the bakers who are located in the north, south, east, Tobago and soon Central.
“We provide them with the puree, the formula, the packaging and we pay them a set price. Hi-Lo and the other markets pay TTABA and we then pay the bakers.
“We visited many bakeries and our criteria are above board standards because our vision is to export this. And the product that we have so far is superior,” Pires boasted.
Gosine added that, “Because it is a speciality bread in order for each bakery to come on board it takes at least two weeks to train them in the technique.”
The Farmers Pride bread is also available in sweet potato and plantain but those will be launched in coming months in a similar manner to the cassava where contracts will be given to farmers to grow the sweet potatoes and plantains, Pires said.
The TTBA has taken it even further
and acquired a machine that will allow them to produce cassava flour for the first time in Trinidad and the Caribbean from next year.
Pires said research and development is critical at TTABA, because it is there that Gosine and the research team discovered so many different possibilities for the seven local crops that they have so far agreed to focus on developing – cassava, sweet potatoes, sweet corn, hot peppers, pommecythere, paw paw and coconut water.
“We must produce more than enough for us to export so through R&D we are encouraging more and more reduction in the food import,” Pires said, giving an example of where TTABA envisions this country’s agriculture sector going.
“Ireland has a population of three point something million but produces milk and butter for the needs of five to six million people. They have created jobs and cash and foreign currency because 40 per cent of their production is exported.
“That is the sort of thing that we are looking at. We want to become a generator of foreign exchange rather than an importer...,” Pires said.
He said every month new initiatives are going to be released in agriculture and they want to partner with Government, which has not funded it after the funding ended last year.
“So once we get the seven items launched, working and running, we then identified the next product and we have already identified the next commodity as goat and goat’s milk.
“We are going to be looking at how we can process goat’s milk, how we can add value to goat’s milk. Because of its very healthy higher protein content,” Pires said.
Another project TTABA is looking at for which it will need government support is a nationwide community project.
“The amount of lime and lemon concentrate that is imported into Trinidad; we want to establish communities around Trinidad and Tobago where they can put down one lemon tree, one lime tree in every backyard.”
Pires said a year from now there will be fruit that can be carried to the community centre where it will be graded etc and then supplied to it so it can make concentrate out of it.
“So what we want to do is to slowly, but surely, empower communities,” Pires said.
Gosine added that there is a market for lime concentrate in the UK and Europe which had a drop of 40 per cent in their supply last year.
“That represents almost $300 plus billion TT dollars. There is a night-life there where they use lime so they were literally banging on our doors to find out if we could help them out,” he said.
Pires said TTABA can lean internally to find out information because it has representatives from key areas on the board and so it can duplicate the lemon and lime project in a number of other areas.
He added that a world of opportunities were available to this country in the region and outside of the region.
Gosine pointed out that if the association did it right and became a success story it will then be able to attract more international investors, because it already has interests from Holland for certain products developed by TTABA.
Source: www.trinidadexpress.com/business-magazine/Cassava-bread-time-201872551.html
Cassava and other root vegetables are on their way to becoming a household staple in the form of bread.
Cassava whole wheat and multigrain breads took root last year at Hi-Lo Food Stores, Tru Valu supermarkets and Pricesmart at around $13 per loaf.
The Trinidad and Tobago Agribusiness Association (TTABA) which held its cassava signing ceremony last week at the Normandie Hotel, St Ann’s, not only gave one year contracts to 38 cassava farmers and five bakers for its Farmers Pride brand of specialty cassava bread, but hopes for increased local food production and income for local farmers.
Speaking with the Business Express last week, TTABA’s Chairman Joe Pires and Ag Chief Executive Officer Neil Gosine spoke of the vision that the new board, which was elected in September last year, has for the non-profit TTABA.
Pires said the board came in with a different vision of how TTABA would work and so restructuring the company started with the help of then CEO Vassel Stewart. However Stewart resigned and Gosine, who represents the Export Association on the board, offered his services on a six-month trial basis.
The new Ag CEO would take them on a path to a total restructuring and away from the previous approach.
Pires said he was on the board a few months before he became chairman in September and he and the whole board saw the tremendous potential there was for agriculture products if they chose five or six products, work with them and when they become good, work on developing others.
“We have a real good team of 13 made up of people from different backgrounds and at the end of the day we are representing farmers organisations but we are working to ensure that TTABA’s vision will continue to be. At least every year we focus on at least three to four new commodities.
“So that five, 10 years from now we would have tackled 20 to 30 new commodities and have a sustainable path where they can develop agriculture in Trinidad to a level where we have self security in certain key commodities and actually generating exports and earning foreign exchange.
“TTABA feels that the bread alone is a market that we can develop. We recognise that while there is a market for the cassava fries, we wanted to do something unique which is the cassava bread.
“Neil and his team – the Research and Development team (at TTABA) – worked for the last four or five months on a formula for the bakers to produce a good bread,” he said.
The bread was put on the market last year but TTABA felt that they needed to use a scientific means of establishing the specialty bread, he said.
So a cost to produce was worked out in relation to the demand for the product by the supermarkets and then that was used to calculate the amount of cassava needed and equated it to the amount of land needed and then labour needed according to acreage.
“That was never done before. We launched the bread and we hoped that everyone bought it at this price, that is what we did before,” he said.
Gosine said this was an opportunity for farmers to increase their income by increasing their ability to supply.
“Before we would have farmers restrict how many acres they would put under production because there were limits to the market,” Gosine explained.
And though TTABA has been supporting the bakers,TTABA is not, and does not want to be involved in the distribution and baking of the bread.
Pires said but they have been supporting the bakers who are located in the north, south, east, Tobago and soon Central.
“We provide them with the puree, the formula, the packaging and we pay them a set price. Hi-Lo and the other markets pay TTABA and we then pay the bakers.
“We visited many bakeries and our criteria are above board standards because our vision is to export this. And the product that we have so far is superior,” Pires boasted.
Gosine added that, “Because it is a speciality bread in order for each bakery to come on board it takes at least two weeks to train them in the technique.”
The Farmers Pride bread is also available in sweet potato and plantain but those will be launched in coming months in a similar manner to the cassava where contracts will be given to farmers to grow the sweet potatoes and plantains, Pires said.
The TTBA has taken it even further
and acquired a machine that will allow them to produce cassava flour for the first time in Trinidad and the Caribbean from next year.
Pires said research and development is critical at TTABA, because it is there that Gosine and the research team discovered so many different possibilities for the seven local crops that they have so far agreed to focus on developing – cassava, sweet potatoes, sweet corn, hot peppers, pommecythere, paw paw and coconut water.
“We must produce more than enough for us to export so through R&D we are encouraging more and more reduction in the food import,” Pires said, giving an example of where TTABA envisions this country’s agriculture sector going.
“Ireland has a population of three point something million but produces milk and butter for the needs of five to six million people. They have created jobs and cash and foreign currency because 40 per cent of their production is exported.
“That is the sort of thing that we are looking at. We want to become a generator of foreign exchange rather than an importer...,” Pires said.
He said every month new initiatives are going to be released in agriculture and they want to partner with Government, which has not funded it after the funding ended last year.
“So once we get the seven items launched, working and running, we then identified the next product and we have already identified the next commodity as goat and goat’s milk.
“We are going to be looking at how we can process goat’s milk, how we can add value to goat’s milk. Because of its very healthy higher protein content,” Pires said.
Another project TTABA is looking at for which it will need government support is a nationwide community project.
“The amount of lime and lemon concentrate that is imported into Trinidad; we want to establish communities around Trinidad and Tobago where they can put down one lemon tree, one lime tree in every backyard.”
Pires said a year from now there will be fruit that can be carried to the community centre where it will be graded etc and then supplied to it so it can make concentrate out of it.
“So what we want to do is to slowly, but surely, empower communities,” Pires said.
Gosine added that there is a market for lime concentrate in the UK and Europe which had a drop of 40 per cent in their supply last year.
“That represents almost $300 plus billion TT dollars. There is a night-life there where they use lime so they were literally banging on our doors to find out if we could help them out,” he said.
Pires said TTABA can lean internally to find out information because it has representatives from key areas on the board and so it can duplicate the lemon and lime project in a number of other areas.
He added that a world of opportunities were available to this country in the region and outside of the region.
Gosine pointed out that if the association did it right and became a success story it will then be able to attract more international investors, because it already has interests from Holland for certain products developed by TTABA.
Source: www.trinidadexpress.com/business-magazine/Cassava-bread-time-201872551.html