The Su­per­mar­ket As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (SATT) has elect­ed Kevin Kissoon of Tru Valu Su­per­mar­kets as its new pres­i­dent for the 2026–2028 term.

Kissoon takes over as the as­so­ci­a­tion pre­pares to fo­cus on train­ing and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, stronger ties with lo­cal sup­pli­ers and ad­vo­ca­cy on poli­cies af­fect­ing busi­ness­es and con­sumers.

SATT an­nounced the new board in a news re­lease sent yes­ter­day, fol­low­ing its an­nu­al gen­er­al meet­ing at Val­park Chi­nese Restau­rant, Val­park Shop­ping Plaza, Mar­aval.

The mem­bers elect­ed a 15-mem­ber board, with Aa­dithya Per­sad of Per­sad’s D Food King as vice pres­i­dent–projects and Shiv­an Ram­lo­gan of SS Per­sad Su­per­mar­kets as vice pres­i­dent–mar­ket­ing.

Bion­di Bachew of West Bees Su­per­mar­kets will serve as trea­sur­er and im­me­di­ate past pres­i­dent, while Ken­neth Veck of Massy Stores is as­sis­tant trea­sur­er. Na­dia Be­har­ry of Croisee Su­per­mar­kets is sec­re­tary.

Oth­er board mem­bers are Heer­anand Ma­haraj of Bet­ter Deal Su­per­mar­kets, Cindy Kham­ram of JTA Su­per­mar­kets, Shiv­an Bhag­gan of San­ta Cruz Food Bas­ket, Taran Ma­haraj of Bones Price Cut­ters Su­per­mar­ket, Rav­il Sookhoo of MS Food­c­i­ty Su­per­mar­ket, Dil­lon Teelucks­ingh of Xtra Foods Su­per­mar­kets, Christo­pher Low of Sing Chong Su­per­mar­ket and Ravi Diptee of Plaza Com­plex Shop N Stop Su­per­mar­ket.

Kissoon brings more than two decades of ex­pe­ri­ence in re­tail, sup­ply chain man­age­ment, pro­cure­ment and com­mer­cial op­er­a­tions to the pres­i­den­cy. He pre­vi­ous­ly served as SATT’s vice pres­i­dent–projects and holds an MBA.

In his ac­cep­tance re­marks, Kissoon called for greater co­op­er­a­tion among su­per­mar­ket op­er­a­tors de­spite their com­pe­ti­tion.

“We may be com­peti­tors in busi­ness, but when we come to­geth­er as the board of the Su­per­mar­kets As­so­ci­a­tion, we must be­come part­ners in pur­pose,” he said.

Kissoon said the as­so­ci­a­tion must look be­yond the in­ter­ests of in­di­vid­ual busi­ness­es and con­sid­er the peo­ple, fam­i­lies, com­mu­ni­ties, sup­pli­ers and ser­vice providers whose liveli­hoods de­pend on a sus­tain­able su­per­mar­ket sec­tor.

His pri­or­i­ties for the new term in­clude ex­pand­ing train­ing and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion op­por­tu­ni­ties for su­per­mar­ket em­ploy­ees, strength­en­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion with lo­cal sup­pli­ers and ad­vo­cat­ing for poli­cies aimed at pro­tect­ing busi­ness­es and con­sumers.

Kissoon al­so iden­ti­fied the su­per­mar­ket sec­tor’s role in food se­cu­ri­ty, em­ploy­ment and the wider econ­o­my as ar­eas re­quir­ing con­tin­ued at­ten­tion.