GEISHA KOW­LESSAR ALON­ZO

In the heart of Wright­son Road, the rhyth­mic hum of the Na­tion­al Flour Mills Ltd (NFM) fa­cil­i­ty serves as a con­stant pulse for the na­tion’s food se­cu­ri­ty.

NFM has been en­gaged in an am­bi­tious trans­for­ma­tion since 2021, un­der the lead­er­ship vi­sion of its chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer, Ian Mitchell, as it fo­cus­es on tran­si­tion­ing from sta­bil­i­sa­tion to sys­temic ex­cel­lence,

At the cen­tre of this evo­lu­tion is a bold fi­nan­cial tar­get: to grow rev­enue from $577 mil­lion in 2023 to near­ly $900 mil­lion by the end of 2026, a 56 per cent in­crease in sales in a four year pe­ri­od. The com­pa­ny’s rev­enue for the nine months end­ed Sep­tem­ber 30, 2025 was $401.47.

While the jour­ney to­ward this mile­stone has been met with the un­pre­dictable head­winds of glob­al volatil­i­ty, the com­pa­ny re­mains stead­fast.

The path to $900 mil­lion is no longer just a fis­cal goal. It is a blue­print for a di­ver­si­fied, re­gion­al food so­lu­tions pow­er­house that aims to “Feed Fam­i­lies and En­rich Lives” across the Caribbean.

This vi­sion has been ar­tic­u­lat­ed by Mitchell, who out­lined the com­pa­ny’s growth tra­jec­to­ry, op­er­a­tional in­no­va­tions, and strate­gic vi­sion as NFM po­si­tions it­self to be­come a di­ver­si­fied re­gion­al food so­lu­tions pow­er­house by the end of 2026.

Mitchell ac­knowl­edged that the path has been “not lin­ear,” with some strate­gic moves de­ferred.

Yet, he re­mains con­fi­dent that dis­ci­plined ex­e­cu­tion would even­tu­al­ly de­liv­er on the promise.

“At the same time, we have been lay­ing the foun­da­tions and are con­tin­u­ing to grow through dis­ci­plined ex­e­cu­tion. The fo­cus is on stronger brand per­for­mance, im­proved prod­uct qual­i­ty, im­proved cus­tomer ser­vice and dis­tri­b­u­tion and in­no­va­tion to sup­port en­try in­to high­er-mar­gin cat­e­gories, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the re­gion­al mar­ket. The biggest ob­sta­cles have been glob­al volatil­i­ty in grain mar­kets and lo­gis­tics dis­rup­tions. Notwith­stand­ing these pres­sures, we have sharp­ened op­er­a­tional dis­ci­pline and ul­ti­mate­ly strength­ened the busi­ness,” Mitchell ex­plained.

The com­pa­ny’s growth strat­e­gy is an­chored in four pil­lars: stronger brand per­for­mance, im­proved prod­uct qual­i­ty, en­hanced dis­tri­b­u­tion and high-mar­gin in­no­va­tion. Cen­tral to this suc­cess has been the re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion of lega­cy brands.

The re­launch of the Ibis brand in June last year, for in­stance, served as a re­minder to con­sumers of the in­trin­sic val­ue and re­li­a­bil­i­ty NFM brings to Caribbean kitchens.

Si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly, the com­pa­ny has over­hauled its dry mix pre­sen­ta­tions, mak­ing them more rel­e­vant to the mod­ern, con­ve­nience-seek­ing con­sumer.

“The strong fo­cus on our brands has paid div­i­dends, with the Ibis re­launch re­mind­ing cus­tomers of the val­ue the brand brings to their lives. Im­proved pre­sen­ta­tion of dry mix­es has made our prod­ucts more rel­e­vant and fit for pur­pose. Im­proved feed for­mu­la­tions have en­abled us to make sig­nif­i­cant in­roads in­to new spe­cial­i­ty feed cat­e­gories.

“On the mar­ket side, we now have more ex­port-ready prod­ucts that ‘trav­el well’, so we are poised for growth in dry mix­es and prod­ucts for the bak­ery chan­nel. While we have en­tered new mar­kets, we are al­so ex­pand­ing the port­fo­lio in mar­kets we al­ready serve,” Mitchell said, adding that for ex­am­ple, in some mar­kets NFM on­ly sold food prod­ucts pre­vi­ous­ly but now it al­so sells feed as in the case of Cu­ra­cao.

Re­silience Amidst Glob­al Volatil­i­ty

The glob­al land­scape has not been kind to the agro-pro­cess­ing in­dus­try in re­cent years. Grain mar­ket volatil­i­ty and lo­gis­ti­cal dis­rup­tions have forced NFM to sharp­en its op­er­a­tional dis­ci­pline.

His­tor­i­cal­ly, the “li­on’s share” of raw ma­te­ri­als for flour, rice, and feed has come from tem­per­ate cli­mates far from Caribbean shores.

To com­bat this vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, NFM is lead­ing a qui­et rev­o­lu­tion in lo­cal in­gre­di­ent sub­sti­tu­tion.

A piv­otal el­e­ment of this re­silience is the com­pa­ny’s Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing (MOU) with the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) Fac­ul­ty of Food and Agri­cul­ture.

This part­ner­ship is ded­i­cat­ed to iden­ti­fy­ing lo­cal sub­sti­tutes for im­port­ed grains. A flag­ship suc­cess of this ini­tia­tive is the Lo­tus Brand Cas­sa­va Wheat blend­ed flour.

De­signed to per­form iden­ti­cal­ly to 100 per cent wheat flour, NFM has fo­cused on mak­ing this prod­uct af­ford­able and main­stream, di­rect­ly ad­dress­ing the re­gion­al need to re­duce the food im­port bill.

“We con­tin­ue to seek op­por­tu­ni­ties of this na­ture, and over time we ex­pect a grad­ual in­crease in lo­cal in­puts,” Mitchell as­sured.

This spir­it of re­silience is al­so re­flect­ed in NFM’s open­ness to com­pe­ti­tion.

Mitchell wel­comed the growth of lo­cal and re­gion­al com­peti­tors, ar­gu­ing that it fos­ters over­all de­vel­op­ment and strength­ens the sec­tor’s abil­i­ty to com­pete with for­eign im­ports in­to Cari­com.

“We be­lieve that as our lo­cal and re­gion­al com­peti­tors im­prove and grow, we in­di­rect­ly cre­ate an en­vi­ron­ment for over­all growth, which in turn push­es us to com­pete more ef­fec­tive­ly with for­eign im­ports in­to Cari­com” he ex­plained.

To achieve the ef­fi­cien­cy re­quired for a $900 mil­lion en­ter­prise, NFM has turned to high-tech so­lu­tions.

April 2025 marked a wa­ter­shed mo­ment for the com­pa­ny with the im­ple­men­ta­tion of a new En­ter­prise Re­source Plan­ning (ERP) sys­tem.

This dig­i­tal back­bone pro­vides seam­less ac­cess to every facet of op­er­a­tions, from pro­cure­ment to fi­nal dis­tri­b­u­tion.

“We are still learn­ing to har­ness the full pow­er of the new sys­tem,” the CEO not­ed, “but with­in the next year, we will be in­tro­duc­ing AI to help us man­age and in­ter­pret the vast amount of da­ta we now have ac­cess to.”

Be­yond soft­ware, the phys­i­cal man­u­fac­tur­ing process has seen sig­nif­i­cant up­grades. Re-en­gi­neered pack­ag­ing lines and man­u­fac­tur­ing process­es have in­creased ca­pac­i­ty while sup­port­ing the move to­ward “Clean La­bel” prod­ucts across its en­tire flour port­fo­lio.

En­vi­ron­men­tal con­cerns are al­so be­ing ad­dressed through en­er­gy-ef­fi­cien­cy up­grades, waste-re­duc­tion ini­tia­tives, im­proved co-prod­uct util­i­sa­tion, and tighter con­trols.

Lead­er­ship and work­force: Build­ing ca­pac­i­ty from with­in

Since as­sum­ing the CEO role in 2021, Mitchell’s lead­er­ship vi­sion has evolved from sta­bil­i­sa­tion to build­ing sys­tems that per­form con­sis­tent­ly.

Gov­er­nance has been strength­ened, ex­e­cu­tion im­proved and ac­count­abil­i­ty deep­ened.

“My role has in­creas­ing­ly be­come one of en­abling, coach­ing, and set­ting clear di­rec­tion,” he said.

Work­force de­vel­op­ment has been cen­tral to NFM’s suc­cess.

The com­pa­ny es­tab­lished val­ues that res­onate with em­ploy­ees and an­chor dis­cus­sions in pur­pose.

Ex­ten­sive train­ing pro­grammes are com­ple­ment­ed by en­cour­age­ment for em­ploy­ees to take per­son­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for their own growth.

Stretch per­for­mance goals are set to en­sure con­tin­u­ous im­prove­ment.

“We be­lieve that if each of us gets bet­ter, we be­come col­lec­tive­ly bet­ter,” Mitchell em­pha­sised, adding that lead­er­ship de­vel­op­ment ini­tia­tives are un­der­way to sus­tain these gains.

Sus­tain­abil­i­ty and re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty

NFM’s ex­pan­sion is char­ac­terised by a re­fusal to grow “reck­less­ly.”

Every de­ci­sion is weighed against its im­pact on na­tion­al eco­nom­ic re­silience.

In­stead of sim­ply com­pet­ing with lo­cal man­u­fac­tur­ers, NFM seeks to re­ju­ve­nate the wider ecosys­tem.

“For ex­am­ple, are we sup­port­ing the agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor in rice, co­coa, and cas­sa­va? How do we help re­duce the re­gion’s food im­port bill rather than com­pete with oth­er man­u­fac­tur­ers in Trinidad and To­ba­go or across Cari­com?” Mitchell said.

Sup­ply chain volatil­i­ty re­mains a key risk, man­aged through dis­ci­plined pro­cure­ment, di­ver­si­fied sourc­ing, and pric­ing dis­ci­pline.

Health-con­scious con­sumer trends are al­so re­shap­ing the mar­ket.

“We are ex­pand­ing our spe­cial­i­ty flours, clean-la­bel of­fer­ings, and tar­get­ed in­no­va­tions while re­main­ing ground­ed in com­mer­cial­ly vi­able prod­ucts. This ap­plies to an­i­mal feed and pet food as well. In­no­va­tion must meet con­sumer needs and be op­er­a­tional­ly fea­si­ble,” Mitchell stat­ed.

As the com­pa­ny looks to­ward 2026, the de­f­i­n­i­tion of suc­cess has ex­pand­ed.

NFM en­vi­sions it­self as a di­ver­si­fied re­gion­al food so­lu­tions com­pa­ny.

This in­volves deep­er ver­ti­cal in­te­gra­tion through part­ner­ships, stronger brands and deep­er in­te­gra­tion across the Caribbean val­ue chain.

“Sup­pli­er part­ner­ships and tech­ni­cal col­lab­o­ra­tors have been crit­i­cal. Look­ing ahead, part­ner­ships that ac­cel­er­ate in­no­va­tion, ex­pand re­gion­al reach, de­vel­op ca­pa­bil­i­ties, and

build ca­pac­i­ty will be in­creas­ing­ly im­por­tant,” Mitchell added.