GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

The Su­per­mar­ket As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (SATT) is rec­om­mend­ing that the price of sta­ples must re­main as low as pos­si­ble, ne­ces­si­tat­ing ac­tive gov­ern­ment in­ter­ven­tion to en­hance the lo­cal grow­ing and pro­duc­tion of these es­sen­tial prod­ucts.

This as SATT ar­tic­u­lat­ed a clear, mul­ti-faceted set of rec­om­men­da­tions for the na­tion­al bud­get, as it al­so po­si­tioned the re­tail food sec­tor as a strate­gic part­ner in tack­ling the na­tion’s chal­lenges high cost of liv­ing and food se­cu­ri­ty.

Speak­ing on CNC3’s Morn­ing Brew pro­gramme yes­ter­day SATT’s pres­i­dent Bion­di Bachew ex­plained, “So what we would like to see is sta­ples stay as low as pos­si­ble and we would wel­come any move by the gov­ern­ment to in­ter­vene in that space lo­cal­ly to en­hance lo­cal grow­ing and pro­duc­tion of those prod­ucts.”

He al­so em­pha­sised the need for a ro­bust and ac­tion­able plan to strength­en the agri­cul­ture and agribusi­ness sec­tors.

Bachew point­ed out that the na­tion­al palate has evolved, with con­sumers in­creas­ing­ly drawn to for­eign prod­ucts how­ev­er, he ar­gued that mean­ing­ful im­port sub­sti­tu­tion can­not be achieved sim­ply by grow­ing more lo­cal crops.

In­stead, the gov­ern­ment must in­vest in the full agri­cul­tur­al val­ue chain—from cul­ti­va­tion and pri­ma­ry pro­cess­ing to mar­ket-ready con­sumer goods.

This means sup­port­ing farm­ers not just with pol­i­cy rhetoric, but with tan­gi­ble in­cen­tives such as grants and tax re­lief that is ac­ces­si­ble and ef­fec­tive.

“Grow­ing more toma­toes in and of it­self will not af­fect im­port sub­sti­tu­tion in that way, but it’s how that prod­uct can then move across the val­ue chain and be turned in­to some­thing that’s us­able by con­sumers,” Bachew ex­plained.

The ris­ing cost of food is an­oth­er fac­tor that needs to be ad­dressed, he said.

Ac­knowl­edg­ing that in­fla­tion is a glob­al is­sue, Bachew high­light­ed that lo­cal su­per­mar­kets are adapt­ing to meet con­sumer needs.

One strat­e­gy, he said, in­volves di­ver­si­fy­ing sup­ply chains by in­tro­duc­ing new brands from non-tra­di­tion­al mar­kets, there­by re­duc­ing re­liance on ex­pen­sive im­ports.

An­oth­er ap­proach is repack­ag­ing bulk items in­to small­er, more af­ford­able por­tions—an ef­fort to meet con­sumers “where they are.”

Ex­am­ples in­clude slic­ing cheese in­to small­er cuts or re­dis­trib­ut­ing bulk peanut but­ter in­to in­di­vid­ual serv­ings, Bachew said.

On the mat­ter of en­gage­ment with pol­i­cy­mak­ers, he said the as­so­ci­a­tion, like oth­er busi­ness ser­vice or­gan­i­sa­tions, main­tains di­a­logue with var­i­ous line min­istries, adding that pro­pos­als were sub­mit­ted ad­dress­ing not on­ly food-re­lat­ed con­cerns, but al­so broad­er busi­ness chal­lenges such as crime and pub­lic safe­ty.

Bachew al­so ad­vo­cat­ed for in­no­v­a­tive gov­ern­ment in­ter­ven­tions, in­clud­ing a shift to­ward a cash­less so­ci­ety. That would re­duce the cir­cu­la­tion of phys­i­cal cash—through di­rect de­posit sys­tems and dig­i­tal pay­ments—so that busi­ness­es and con­sumers alike could be­come less vul­ner­a­ble to theft and fraud.

The dis­cus­sion al­so touched on the me­chan­ics of price changes fol­low­ing bud­get an­nounce­ments.

Bachew ex­plained that any in­crease in im­port tar­iffs or du­ties does not trans­late in­to im­me­di­ate price hikes at su­per­mar­kets, adding that the tim­ing de­pends on ex­ist­ing in­ven­to­ry lev­els and the sup­ply chain’s re­silience.

Prod­ucts al­ready in stock may re­tain their cur­rent prices for weeks or even months, while fu­ture ship­ments re­flect the new cost struc­ture.

This lag al­lows for a grad­ual ad­just­ment rather than a sud­den shock to con­sumers.

As bud­get day ap­proach­es, Bachew ex­pressed cau­tious op­ti­mism as he not­ed that po­lit­i­cal tran­si­tions of­ten bring shifts in pol­i­cy di­rec­tion.