Wes­ley Gib­bings

Lo­cal ice cream man­u­fac­tur­ers are join­ing hands to counter mul­ti­ple chal­lenges they be­lieve may de­stroy a key sec­tor with the po­ten­tial to achieve eco­nom­ic growth and cre­ate em­ploy­ment. Ac­cord­ing to one of the lead play­ers, in an ef­fort to in­au­gu­rate an ice cream man­u­fac­tur­ers' as­so­ci­a­tion, Kather­ine Bethel of B's Home Made Ice Cream: "It has been a chal­lenge to re­main vi­able." Among the key is­sues is the heavy im­por­ta­tion of multi­na­tion­al brands at high­ly-com­pet­i­tive prices and prob­lems with the sup­ply of home-grown fruits and oth­er in­dige­nous in­puts for the man­u­fac­ture of ice cream.

Mar­ket de­mand for im­port­ed brands con­tin­ues to be strong, in 2009 alone ac­count­ing for close to $12 mil­lion in im­ports which re­main on an up­ward swing, ac­cord­ing to in­dus­try watch­er, Keny­on Cham­pi­on.That fig­ure, Cham­pi­on, who is Event Co-or­di­na­tor at My Team Events, sug­gests that greater fo­cus ought to fall on the con­tri­bu­tion of the ice cream busi­ness on over­all eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment.As a con­se­quence, he has joined hands with UK-based en­tre­pre­neur, Lyn­don Bap­tiste, to stage the first-ever ice cream fes­ti­val in Port-of- Spain–Sun­dae­Fest.

From all ap­pear­ances, ice cream man­u­fac­tur­ing re­mains an im­por­tant, al­beit over­looked en­ter­prise in the Caribbean. Ac­cord­ing to the In­ter­na­tion­al Dairy Foods As­so­ci­a­tion (ID­FA) the mul­ti-bil­lion dol­lar glob­al ice cream in­dus­try has, over the past two years, been stag­ing a come­back fol­low­ing the fi­nan­cial cri­sis of 2007/2008.But Bethel claims that the cur­rent fis­cal en­vi­ron­ment, cou­pled with is­sues in the agri­cul­ture sec­tor, might not be pro­mot­ing an even play­ing field."We know we can't stop the glob­al­i­sa­tion ... can't stop the com­pe­ti­tion and that we have to be cre­ative," she said. But she added that re­li­able sup­plies from the field and a frame­work con­ducive to in­vest­ment in the sec­tor need to al­so be in place.It seems de­mand is not the prob­lem.

"We, West In­di­ans, have al­ways had an affin­i­ty for ice cream," Bap­tiste, di­rec­tor of UK-based Cayenne In­ter­na­tion­al Events Ltd.The re­gion does not fea­ture in the in­ter­na­tion­al sta­tis­tics which, ac­cord­ing to the Unilever Cor­po­ra­tion, show that New Zealand, the Unit­ed States and Aus­tralia lead the world in per capi­ta con­sump­tion of ice cream. In New Zealand, con­sump­tion has been es­ti­mat­ed at 30 litres per year, ac­cord­ing to the Unilever sta­tis­tics."The (T&T) mar­ket is def­i­nite­ly on an up­ward spi­ral," said Bap­tiste, "take-home sales pos­si­bly be­ing the biggest sec­tor with spe­cial­ty/ar­ti­san sales ag­gres­sive­ly catch­ing up–one on­ly has to look at the lines out­side the many ice cream ven­dors around."

Sun­dae­Fest, due for the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um on Ju­ly 21, will hope­ful­ly bring to­geth­er the na­tion's top small, medi­um and large ice cream pro­duc­ers along with agents for some of the in­ter­na­tion­al brands on the mar­ket.There has been con­cern, though, that the event should specif­i­cal­ly at­tempt to pro­mote lo­cal prod­ucts. Some man­u­fac­tur­ers are yet to con­firm their par­tic­i­pa­tion.With over 6,600 Face­book events in­vi­ta­tions out and 1,600 likes and a mod­er­ate­ly-sub­scribed Twit­ter feed, Bap­tiste and Cham­pi­on are re­ly­ing heav­i­ly on a mix of tra­di­tion­al and new, so­cial me­dia plat­forms to pro­mote the event."Trinidad and To­ba­go's ice cream and frozen treats in­dus­try is grow­ing ag­gres­sive­ly with the many new pri­vate 'home­made' start-up com­pa­nies com­bined with the in­ter­na­tion­al brands on the mar­ket," Bap­tiste told T&T Guardian.

Cham­pi­on's own re­search shows that, among the younger pop­u­la­tion, pop­u­lar fran­chise brands are the pre­ferred prod­ucts. How­ev­er, he says there is an over­all pref­er­ence for "home­made" va­ri­eties, es­pe­cial­ly those made from lo­cal fruit."These lo­cal flavours are very pop­u­lar at the (street) carts," he said.Bap­tiste sug­gests that greater at­ten­tion should al­so be paid to the fact that peo­ple are al­so keep­ing a close eye on is­sues of health and nu­tri­tion.He cites the re­cent des­ig­na­tion of sour­sop as a po­ten­tial "mir­a­cle food" with pos­i­tive im­pli­ca­tions for can­cer pa­tients. "It has great val­ue po­ten­tial for the lo­cal in­dus­try if one knows how to ex­ploit the pos­si­bil­i­ties," Bap­tiste said.Ac­cord­ing to Bap­tiste: "My vi­sion is that the com­mu­ni­ty will put aside all dif­fer­ences once in­side the fes­ti­val –it will be great to see prime min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and the op­po­si­tion leader, Kei­th Row­ley, shar­ing a Sun­dae."Even if they don't turn up to share such a treat, Bap­tiste be­lieves ice cream lovers from all cor­ners of the coun­try will do so on their be­half.

More de­tails on Face­book, Twit­ter @Sun­dae­Fest and by email­ing sun­dae­fest@gmail.com.