By Kirk Ram­per­sad

A sta­tis­tic re­leased re­cent­ly should stop every pol­i­cy­mak­er, busi­ness leader and cit­i­zen in their tracks.

Ac­cord­ing to the lat­est Unit­ed Na­tions food se­cu­ri­ty as­sess­ment, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 512,000 peo­ple in Trinidad and To­ba­go, rep­re­sent­ing 36.8 per cent of the pop­u­la­tion, can­not af­ford a healthy di­et. Even more con­cern­ing, around 400,000 peo­ple are es­ti­mat­ed to be fac­ing mod­er­ate or se­vere food in­se­cu­ri­ty, while rough­ly 200,000 peo­ple re­main un­der­nour­ished. These are not fig­ures from a con­flict zone or a coun­try ex­pe­ri­enc­ing eco­nom­ic col­lapse. They are fig­ures from Trinidad and To­ba­go in 2026.

For years, dis­cus­sions about the econ­o­my have cen­tred on en­er­gy prices, GDP growth, for­eign ex­change short­ages, fis­cal deficits and in­fla­tion rates. While these in­di­ca­tors mat­ter, they of­ten fail to an­swer a much sim­pler ques­tion: How are or­di­nary cit­i­zens ac­tu­al­ly liv­ing?

The af­ford­abil­i­ty of healthy food may be one of the most im­por­tant in­di­ca­tors of eco­nom­ic well­be­ing be­cause it sits at the in­ter­sec­tion of in­come, pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, health­care, ed­u­ca­tion and qual­i­ty of life.

The re­al­i­ty is straight­for­ward. If more than one-third of the pop­u­la­tion can­not af­ford a healthy meal, then eco­nom­ic growth alone is not trans­lat­ing in­to im­proved liv­ing

stan­dards.

The new mea­sure of eco­nom­ic suc­cess

Tra­di­tion­al­ly, coun­tries mea­sured suc­cess through eco­nom­ic out­put. Gross Do­mes­tic Prod­uct re­mains im­por­tant. It tells us how much an econ­o­my pro­duces. How­ev­er, GDP does not re­veal whether cit­i­zens can com­fort­ably pur­chase gro­ceries, save for emer­gen­cies, af­ford health­care or in­vest in their chil­dren’s fu­ture.

A coun­try can record eco­nom­ic growth while si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly ex­pe­ri­enc­ing de­clin­ing liv­ing stan­dards. This is where af­ford­abil­i­ty be­comes a pow­er­ful mea­sure.

The Unit­ed Na­tions da­ta shows that Trinidad and To­ba­go has ex­pe­ri­enced a grad­ual in­crease in the pro­por­tion of peo­ple un­able to af­ford a healthy di­et over the past

decade. The fig­ure stood at ap­prox­i­mate­ly 31.5 per cent in 2017, rose sharply dur­ing the pan­dem­ic and re­mains el­e­vat­ed to­day de­spite eco­nom­ic re­cov­ery.

This sug­gests that while the econ­o­my has sta­bilised in many re­spects, house­hold pur­chas­ing pow­er has not re­cov­ered at the same pace. For many cit­i­zens, the econ­o­my may be grow­ing on pa­per but shrink­ing in prac­tice.

The hid­den cost of food in­se­cu­ri­ty

Food in­se­cu­ri­ty is of­ten viewed as a so­cial is­sue. In re­al­i­ty, it is an eco­nom­ic is­sue. When house­holds strug­gle to af­ford nu­tri­tious food, the ef­fects rip­ple across the en­tire

econ­o­my.

Poor nu­tri­tion con­tributes to high­er rates of obe­si­ty, di­a­betes, hy­per­ten­sion and car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­ease. These con­di­tions in­crease health­care ex­pen­di­ture, re­duce work­force pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and cre­ate ad­di­tion­al strain on pub­lic re­sources.

The irony is that food in­se­cu­ri­ty does not al­ways mean hunger. Many house­holds can af­ford calo­ries but can­not af­ford nu­tri­tion. Cheap­er processed foods of­ten be­come the de­fault op­tion be­cause fresh fruits, veg­eta­bles, lean pro­teins and health­i­er al­ter­na­tives cost more. This cre­ates a dan­ger­ous cy­cle where af­ford­abil­i­ty chal­lenges to­day be­come health­care chal­lenges to­mor­row.

The Min­istry of Health has re­peat­ed­ly high­light­ed the coun­try’s grow­ing bur­den of non­com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases and nu­tri­tion re­mains one of the most sig­nif­i­cant con­tribut­ing fac­tors.

Why cit­i­zens feel eco­nom­i­cal­ly stretched

One rea­son many cit­i­zens feel fi­nan­cial­ly pres­sured de­spite rel­a­tive­ly low head­line in­fla­tion is that af­ford­abil­i­ty is in­flu­enced by more than prices alone:

• In­come growth mat­ters;

• Pro­duc­tiv­i­ty mat­ters;

• Hous­ing costs mat­ter;

• Trans­porta­tion costs mat­ter; and

• Debt oblig­a­tions mat­ter;

Even if food in­fla­tion mod­er­ates, house­holds may still feel worse off if wages re­main stag­nant while oth­er liv­ing ex­pens­es con­tin­ue ris­ing.

The lat­est da­ta sug­gests food in­fla­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go has mod­er­at­ed sig­nif­i­cant­ly com­pared to his­tor­i­cal peaks. How­ev­er, af­ford­abil­i­ty chal­lenges re­main be­cause house­hold in­comes have not nec­es­sar­i­ly in­creased at the same rate as over­all liv­ing costs.

This is why many cit­i­zens re­port work­ing hard­er while feel­ing no clos­er to fi­nan­cial se­cu­ri­ty. Eco­nom­ic pres­sure is in­creas­ing­ly be­com­ing a mid­dle-class is­sue rather than

sole­ly a pover­ty is­sue. Many work­ing pro­fes­sion­als to­day are earn­ing enough to sur­vive but not enough to thrive.

The pro­duc­tiv­i­ty con­nec­tion

Food af­ford­abil­i­ty is ul­ti­mate­ly a pro­duc­tiv­i­ty sto­ry. Coun­tries that gen­er­ate high­er lev­els of pro­duc­tiv­i­ty cre­ate high­er wages. High­er wages im­prove pur­chas­ing pow­er.

Im­proved pur­chas­ing pow­er in­creas­es ac­cess to health­i­er lifestyles. This is why some of the world’s most suc­cess­ful economies fo­cus re­lent­less­ly on pro­duc­tiv­i­ty growth.

T&T has spent decades dis­cussing di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, in­no­va­tion and com­pet­i­tive­ness. Yet pro­duc­tiv­i­ty re­mains one of our most sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges:

• If busi­ness­es are un­able to pro­duce more ef­fi­cient­ly, they strug­gle to in­crease wages;

• If wages do not rise mean­ing­ful­ly, pur­chas­ing pow­er stag­nates;

• If pur­chas­ing pow­er stag­nates, af­ford­abil­i­ty de­clines; and

The con­ver­sa­tion about healthy di­ets is there­fore not sim­ply about food. It is about eco­nom­ic trans­for­ma­tion.

A na­tion of con­sumers rather than pro­duc­ers

T&T’s food af­ford­abil­i­ty chal­lenge is al­so tied to its de­pen­dence on im­port­ed food. Es­ti­mates sug­gest that be­tween 80 per cent and 90 per cent of the food con­sumed lo­cal­ly is im­port­ed, re­sult­ing in an an­nu­al food im­port bill that ex­ceeds TT$6 bil­lion. This ex­pos­es con­sumers to glob­al sup­ply chain dis­rup­tions, high­er ship­ping costs, for­eign ex­change con­straints and in­ter­na­tion­al com­mod­i­ty price fluc­tu­a­tions.

The im­pact was ev­i­dent dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic and sub­se­quent glob­al in­fla­tion­ary pe­ri­od, when food prices rose sharply across in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets. Even to­day, many su­per­mar­ket prices re­main el­e­vat­ed de­spite eas­ing in­fla­tion.

Food se­cu­ri­ty there­fore ex­tends be­yond agri­cul­ture. It is equal­ly about im­prov­ing pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, re­duc­ing food waste, strength­en­ing lo­cal sup­ply chains and in­creas­ing do­mes­tic food pro­duc­tion where eco­nom­i­cal­ly vi­able. Build­ing greater re­silience in­to the food sys­tem will be crit­i­cal if Trinidad and To­ba­go is to im­prove both food af­ford­abil­i­ty and long-term eco­nom­ic sus­tain­abil­i­ty.

The busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty can­not ig­nore this

For busi­ness­es, these find­ings should not be viewed sole­ly through a so­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ty lens. There are di­rect com­mer­cial im­pli­ca­tions. Con­sumers un­der fi­nan­cial pres­sure spend dif­fer­ent­ly:

• They de­lay pur­chas­es;

• They trade down to cheap­er al­ter­na­tives;

• They re­duce dis­cre­tionary spend­ing; and

• They be­come in­creas­ing­ly price sen­si­tive.

This af­fects every sec­tor from re­tail and hos­pi­tal­i­ty to bank­ing and re­al es­tate. A pop­u­la­tion strug­gling with af­ford­abil­i­ty can­not dri­ve sus­tained do­mes­tic de­mand.

Busi­ness­es there­fore have a vest­ed in­ter­est in sup­port­ing poli­cies that im­prove pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, in­crease wages and strength­en pur­chas­ing pow­er. The long-term health of the pri­vate sec­tor de­pends on the fi­nan­cial health of con­sumers.

What suc­cess should look like

The goal should not mere­ly be re­duc­ing the per­cent­age of cit­i­zens un­able to af­ford a healthy di­et. The goal should be build­ing an econ­o­my where healthy choic­es be­come

the eas­i­est choic­es.

That re­quires a co­or­di­nat­ed ap­proach in­volv­ing gov­ern­ment, pri­vate sec­tor, agri­cul­ture, ed­u­ca­tion and health­care.

• It re­quires in­vest­ment in pro­duc­tiv­i­ty;

• It re­quires a stronger fo­cus on skills de­vel­op­ment;

• It re­quires mod­erni­sa­tion of food sys­tems; and

• It re­quires im­prov­ing the ease of do­ing busi­ness and cre­at­ing con­di­tions for high­er-val­ue eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty.

Most im­por­tant­ly, it re­quires recog­nis­ing that eco­nom­ic suc­cess is not mea­sured sole­ly by na­tion­al ac­counts. It is mea­sured by whether cit­i­zens can af­ford to live healthy, pro­duc­tive and dig­ni­fied lives.

A fi­nal thought

Per­haps the most im­por­tant take­away from the re­cent Unit­ed Na­tions re­port is that af­ford­abil­i­ty has be­come the defin­ing eco­nom­ic is­sue of our time.

Cit­i­zens are not ask­ing whether the econ­o­my grew by one per cent or two per cent.

• They are ask­ing whether they can af­ford gro­ceries;

• Whether they can save mon­ey;

• Whether they can pro­vide op­por­tu­ni­ties for their chil­dren; and

• Whether their stan­dard of liv­ing is im­prov­ing.

These are the ques­tions that ul­ti­mate­ly de­ter­mine pub­lic con­fi­dence in an econ­o­my. If more than half a mil­lion peo­ple can­not af­ford a healthy di­et, then the chal­lenge be­fore

us is not sim­ply nu­tri­tion­al. It is eco­nom­ic.

And un­til growth reach­es the din­ner ta­ble, many cit­i­zens will con­tin­ue to feel left be­hind re­gard­less of what the head­line num­bers say.

Kirk Ram­per­sad is a se­nior busi­ness and mar­ket­ing ex­ec­u­tive who writes on mar­ket­ing trends, con­sumer be­hav­iour, in­no­va­tion and strate­gic growth. Con­tact him at kirkram@hot­mail.com