Man­u­fac­tur­ing and agri­cul­tur­al sec­tors are wit­ness­ing a re­nais­sance, led by com­pa­nies that com­bine in­no­va­tion, re­silience, and strate­gic vi­sion.

Two stand­out ex­am­ples—Chris­tle Ltd and No­vo Group—are re­defin­ing what it means to be com­pet­i­tive in re­gion­al and glob­al mar­kets.

Both com­pa­nies earned pres­ti­gious awards on Thurs­day at the T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce’s Cham­pi­ons of Busi­ness event, which recog­nised their con­tri­bu­tions: Chris­tle Ltd for out­stand­ing ex­port per­for­mance and its role in di­ver­si­fy­ing the na­tion’s trade port­fo­lio and No­vo Group for its pi­o­neer­ing in­no­va­tion in agri­cul­ture.

Their sto­ries re­flect a shared com­mit­ment to ex­cel­lence, sus­tain­abil­i­ty and eco­nom­ic em­pow­er­ment.

For Jonathan Gar­cia, deputy man­ag­er and di­rec­tor of Chris­tle Ltd, win­ning the Break­through Ex­porter of the Year Award is more than a ti­tle—it’s a tes­ta­ment to de­ter­mi­na­tion and strate­gic fore­sight.

The award cel­e­brates com­pa­nies that suc­cess­ful­ly ex­pand be­yond lo­cal bor­ders, and Chris­tle has done just that.

In on­ly two to three years, the com­pa­ny has es­tab­lished an ex­port foot­print in 11 to 12 Caribbean coun­tries, a re­mark­able achieve­ment for a busi­ness that once op­er­at­ed sole­ly with­in T&T.

The growth tra­jec­to­ry is im­pres­sive.

Start­ing from ze­ro, Chris­tle Ltd, lo­cat­ed on the Ari­ma In­dus­tri­al Es­tate, record­ed a 300 per cent in­crease in ex­port sales dur­ing its ini­tial phase.

While growth per­cent­ages nat­u­ral­ly sta­bilise as vol­umes rise, the mo­men­tum re­mains strong:

• 2023 to 2024: 73 per cent in­crease in over­all ex­port sales

• 2024 to 2025: Pro­ject­ed growth of ap­prox­i­mate­ly 80 per cent

The com­pa­ny op­er­ates in the chem­i­cal man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor, pro­duc­ing high-qual­i­ty so­lu­tions for the con­struc­tion in­dus­try. Its flag­ship prod­uct is a PVC sol­vent de­signed for pipe fit­tings, com­ple­ment­ed by a mul­ti-pur­pose sol­vent suit­able for both hot and cold wa­ter sys­tems with in­ter­na­tion­al ac­cred­i­ta­tion.

Gar­cia ex­plained that the jour­ney to re­gion­al suc­cess was not with­out chal­lenges.

Ini­tial­ly, the com­pa­ny faced hur­dles re­lat­ed to prod­uct reg­is­tra­tion, du­ty-free ac­cess and mar­ket pen­e­tra­tion.

Iden­ti­fy­ing the right part­ners and nav­i­gat­ing lo­gis­ti­cal com­plex­i­ties re­quired per­sis­tence and strate­gic net­work­ing.

Trade mis­sions or­gan­ised by the T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) and the T&T Cham­ber proved in­valu­able, open­ing doors to new mar­kets and fos­ter­ing crit­i­cal re­la­tion­ships.

One of the key dri­vers be­hind the com­pa­ny’s ex­port strat­e­gy was the need to se­cure for­eign ex­change.

Pre­vi­ous­ly a ma­jor chal­lenge, this is­sue be­came the cat­a­lyst for form­ing a ded­i­cat­ed ex­port team.

Look­ing ahead to 2026, Gar­cia en­vi­sions con­sol­i­dat­ing Chris­tle Ltd’s pres­ence in ex­ist­ing mar­kets while ex­plor­ing new op­por­tu­ni­ties in ter­ri­to­ries such as Cu­raçao and Puer­to Ri­co, where de­mand for con­struc­tion-re­lat­ed chem­i­cals is high.

The com­pa­ny al­so an­tic­i­pates fur­ther ex­pan­sion of its man­u­fac­tur­ing fa­cil­i­ty, hav­ing re­cent­ly added 5,000 square feet to its op­er­a­tions in Ari­ma, bring­ing the to­tal space to over 10,000 square feet.

If growth con­tin­ues at its cur­rent pace, ad­di­tion­al space would soon be­come a ne­ces­si­ty.

Be­hind these achieve­ments lies a foun­da­tion of hard work, faith and team­work.

Gar­cia cred­its suc­cess to Almighty God, strong fam­i­ly sup­port and the com­mit­ment of the Chris­tle Ltd team.

While Chris­tle Ltd is mak­ing waves in chem­i­cal man­u­fac­tur­ing, No­vo Group is rev­o­lu­tion­is­ing agri­cul­ture through tech­nol­o­gy and in­no­va­tion.

No­vo Group earned the In­no­va­tion Award for its trans­for­ma­tive work in the agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor.

For ex­ec­u­tive chair­man Glen Ramd­hani, the ac­co­lade re­flects four years of re­lent­less ef­fort to merge tech­nol­o­gy with agri­cul­ture, cre­at­ing so­lu­tions that are both prac­ti­cal and vi­sion­ary.

No­vo Group’s ap­proach is root­ed in in­no­va­tion. The com­pa­ny has de­vel­oped culi­nary prod­ucts that ho­n­our lo­cal cul­ture while elim­i­nat­ing un­healthy preser­v­a­tives, MSG and ad­di­tives.

These prod­ucts are not on­ly health­i­er but al­so en­gi­neered for prac­ti­cal­i­ty. By us­ing ad­vanced tech­nol­o­gy, No­vo Group has de­vel­oped light­weight pack­ag­ing that makes its prod­ucts ide­al for dis­as­ter re­lief ef­forts.

This unique com­bi­na­tion of cul­tur­al au­then­tic­i­ty and tech­no­log­i­cal ef­fi­cien­cy re­cent­ly en­abled No­vo Group to air­lift over 40,000 meals to Ja­maica, fol­low­ing Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa, pro­vid­ing crit­i­cal sup­port to com­mu­ni­ties in need.

The com­pa­ny’s am­bi­tions ex­tend far be­yond prod­uct de­vel­op­ment. No­vo Group is in full ex­pan­sion mode, scal­ing its op­er­a­tions to meet grow­ing de­mand.

Its Trinidad plant is un­der­go­ing a sig­nif­i­cant up­grade, with an in­vest­ment ex­ceed­ing US$80 mil­lion, aimed at in­creas­ing pro­duc­tion ca­pac­i­ty to over four tonnes per hour—five times its cur­rent out­put.

This ex­pan­sion will al­so pave the way for new prod­uct lines and di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion in­to ad­di­tion­al mar­ket seg­ments.

Si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly, No­vo Group is plan­ning a US$20 mil­lion in­vest­ment in Bar­ba­dos, es­tab­lish­ing a sec­ond plant to strength­en its re­gion­al foot­print.

For­eign ex­change gen­er­a­tion is an­oth­er cor­ner­stone of No­vo Group’s strat­e­gy.

By ex­port­ing prod­ucts and ser­vices through its var­i­ous di­vi­sions, the com­pa­ny se­cures the re­sources need­ed for ad­vanced equip­ment and tech­nol­o­gy.

Re­mark­ably, 95 per cent of No­vo Group’s in­puts are sourced lo­cal­ly or with­in the Cari­com re­gion, re­in­forc­ing its com­mit­ment to re­gion­al de­vel­op­ment and sus­tain­abil­i­ty.

Meet­ing pro­duc­tion de­mand has not been with­out chal­lenges.

Ini­tial­ly, scal­ing op­er­a­tions re­quired close col­lab­o­ra­tion with farm­ers, many of whom ex­pand­ed their farms to align with No­vo Group’s ca­pac­i­ty needs.

Look­ing ahead, the com­pa­ny is in­vest­ing in green­house tech­nol­o­gy and pro­vid­ing seed cap­i­tal to farm­ers, en­sur­ing a ro­bust and re­li­able sup­ply chain.

This part­ner­ship-dri­ven mod­el strength­ens agri­cul­tur­al ecosys­tems while sup­port­ing No­vo Group’s growth tra­jec­to­ry.

As the new year ap­proach­es, No­vo Group is poised to in­tro­duce ad­di­tion­al prod­uct seg­ments, all while main­tain­ing its ze­ro-waste phi­los­o­phy. By re­pur­pos­ing el­e­ments from its pro­duc­tion process, the com­pa­ny con­tin­ues to in­no­vate, cre­at­ing new prod­ucts that min­imise en­vi­ron­men­tal im­pact.

Though de­tails re­main un­der wraps, Ramd­hani as­sures that de­vel­op­ments are on the hori­zon.

No­vo Group’s sto­ry is one of vi­sion, re­silience, and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. By com­bin­ing tech­nol­o­gy with tra­di­tion, the com­pa­ny is not on­ly re­defin­ing agri­cul­ture but al­so ex­port­ing Caribbean cul­ture to the world. With bold in­vest­ments, sus­tain­able prac­tices, and a com­mit­ment to in­no­va­tion, No­vo Group is shap­ing the fu­ture of food and farm­ing across the re­gion.

Apart from the awards seg­ment, vet­er­an busi­ness lead­ers Ger­maine Scott (chair of AP Scott Trinidad Ltd) and Bertram Man­hin (founder of the La Ve­ga Es­tate) were in­duct­ed in­to the Busi­ness Hall of Fame, ac­knowl­edg­ing their con­tri­bu­tions to T&T’s eco­nom­ic and so­cial de­vel­op­ment.

La Ve­ga Es­tate has evolved from a mod­est agri­cul­tur­al ven­ture in­to one of this coun­try’s most recog­nised recre­ation­al and hor­ti­cul­tur­al des­ti­na­tions.

Its jour­ney re­flects a com­mit­ment to in­no­va­tion, adapt­abil­i­ty and a vi­sion for sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment.

In the mid-1980s, La Ve­ga Es­tate en­tered the flori­cul­ture mar­ket, ex­port­ing cut flow­ers to in­ter­na­tion­al des­ti­na­tions. How­ev­er, when ma­jor car­ri­ers like BWIA and K&M ceased flights to key mar­kets, the es­tate piv­ot­ed away from ex­ports.

This strate­gic shift marked the be­gin­ning of its trans­for­ma­tion in­to a lo­cal at­trac­tion.

By 2001, La Ve­ga Es­tate was wel­com­ing over 1,100 vis­i­tors at a time—an over­whelm­ing num­ber for its ex­ist­ing fa­cil­i­ties.

To ac­com­mo­date this grow­ing de­mand, the es­tate ex­pand­ed its in­fra­struc­ture, adding an ex­tra-large pool and cre­at­ing new recre­ation­al spaces.

This pe­ri­od al­so saw the de­vel­op­ment of walk­ing trails and land­scaped ar­eas, en­hanc­ing the vis­i­tor ex­pe­ri­ence.

One of the es­tate’s most am­bi­tious projects was the cre­ation of Lake George, a sprawl­ing pond de­signed to pro­vide scenic beau­ty and ad­di­tion­al leisure op­tions.

This in­no­va­tion re­in­forced La Ve­ga’s rep­u­ta­tion as a des­ti­na­tion where na­ture and re­lax­ation con­verge.

Al­though Bertram Man­hin re­mains ac­tive­ly in­volved—per­son­al­ly sourc­ing plants and over­see­ing hor­ti­cul­tur­al projects—the es­tate’s op­er­a­tions are now large­ly man­aged by his son, grand­chil­dren, and a ded­i­cat­ed team.

This gen­er­a­tional con­ti­nu­ity en­sures that La Ve­ga’s core val­ues en­dure while em­brac­ing mod­ern trends.

While La Ve­ga Es­tate en­joys wide­spread recog­ni­tion and pop­u­lar­i­ty, Man­hin be­lieves the jour­ney is far from com­plete.

Plans are un­der­way to ex­pand fruit cul­ti­va­tion, en­hance recre­ation­al fa­cil­i­ties, and de­vel­op new at­trac­tions that blend ed­u­ca­tion, sus­tain­abil­i­ty, and leisure.

The es­tate aims to re­main a hub for fam­i­ly out­ings, eco-tourism, and hor­ti­cul­tur­al ex­cel­lence.