Fresh Start Ltd and ASA En­ter­pris­es have been spot­light­ed for their in­no­va­tion and ex­port prowess, re­ceiv­ing top ho­n­ours at the pres­i­dent’s din­ner and awards host­ed by the T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA), which took place at the Hy­att Re­gency last Tues­day.

ASA En­ter­pris­es (O’Snacks), which se­cured the New Mar­ket En­trant (small) 2024 award, show­cased mas­sive growth with a 129 per cent in­crease in ex­port sales (2023-2024), dri­ven by pre­mi­um snack sales across the Caribbean.

Mean­while, Fresh Start was award­ed In­no­va­tor of the Year 2024 for its Bard­dies cock­tail mix­ers, cham­pi­oning im­port sub­sti­tu­tion by us­ing 100 per cent lo­cal­ly sourced fruit to chal­lenge for­eign com­peti­tors and tar­get the lu­cra­tive re­gion­al hos­pi­tal­i­ty sec­tor.

The Sun­day Busi­ness Guardian spoke to Mar­cus Sun Kow, man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of Fresh Start Ltd and Kyle Yor­rick, gen­er­al man­ag­er of ASA En­ter­pris­es, who re­flect­ed on their com­pa­nies’ suc­cess­es and shared in­sight in­to their strate­gic di­rec­tion for the fu­ture.

Both lead­ers of­fered a look at how in­no­va­tion, re­silience and a bold ap­proach to ex­ports have shaped their suc­cess—and how they plan to build on that mo­men­tum in the months ahead.

ASA En­ter­pris­es has emerged as a re­gion­al ex­port suc­cess sto­ry, earn­ing back-to-back ac­co­lades from the TTMA.

Apart from its 2024 award, the com­pa­ny in 2023, copped the “Trade Mis­sion Cham­pi­on” award, which cel­e­brat­ed ASA’s out­stand­ing per­for­mance in se­cur­ing new dis­trib­u­tors and re­peat or­ders through TTMA-led trade mis­sions.

ASA’s re­gion­al foot­print now spans over 12 Caribbean mar­kets and as 2024 the com­pa­ny ex­ports to 18 Caribbean mar­kets in­clud­ing Guyana, Grena­da, St Mar­tin, Sa­ba, St Eu­sta­tius, An­guil­la, Montser­rat, St Croix, St Thomas, Tor­to­la, Bar­ba­dos, Ja­maica, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lu­cia, Cu­ra­cao and Bonaire.

Among these, Ja­maica and Guyana have emerged as the top-per­form­ing mar­kets, each con­tribut­ing ap­prox­i­mate­ly 80 per cent growth in ex­port vol­ume over the past year.

The com­pa­ny at­trib­ut­es this suc­cess to the size and so­phis­ti­ca­tion of these mar­kets, par­tic­u­lar­ly Ja­maica’s pre­mi­um su­per­mar­ket land­scape, which aligns well with O’Snacks’ po­si­tion­ing as a healthy, high-qual­i­ty snack brand.

The com­pa­ny’s prod­uct line in­cludes pre­mi­um nuts, gra­nola bars and nut bars, with a fo­cus on trans­paren­cy and qual­i­ty.

Yor­rick added that O’Snacks dif­fer­en­ti­ates it­self through its pack­ag­ing—clear, see-through packs that al­low con­sumers to view the prod­uct be­fore pur­chase, in con­trast to the foil pack­ag­ing used by many North Amer­i­can com­peti­tors. He not­ed the com­pa­ny al­so prides it­self in of­fer­ing larg­er grain cashews and ex­ot­ic nut blends.

Look­ing ahead, the com­pa­ny is prepar­ing to ex­pand in­to in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets, in­clud­ing the Unit­ed States (with a fo­cus on New York and Mi­a­mi), Cana­da, Puer­to Ri­co, and Cos­ta Ri­ca.

How­ev­er, one of the key hur­dles to en­ter­ing these mar­kets, and es­pe­cial­ly the US mar­ket, is ob­tain­ing Food and Drug Ad­min­is­tra­tion (FDA) ap­proval.

To ad­dress this, the com­pa­ny is in the process of ac­quir­ing land in cen­tral Trinidad to build a state-of-the-art fa­cil­i­ty which would fea­ture high-speed pro­duc­tion lines and meet the reg­u­la­to­ry stan­dards re­quired for FDA cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, en­abling ex­port to the US and oth­er in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets.

Yor­rick not­ed that while ASA En­ter­pris­es al­ready has in­ter­est­ed cus­tomers in the US and Cana­da, the lack of FDA ap­proval has de­layed ship­ments.

The com­pa­ny is strate­gi­cal­ly wait­ing to com­plete the new fa­cil­i­ty be­fore ap­ply­ing for cer­ti­fi­ca­tion to avoid du­pli­cat­ing the cost­ly and rig­or­ous ap­proval process.

Yor­rick al­so stat­ed that the com­pa­ny’s ro­bust ex­port per­for­mance has been crit­i­cal to its sur­vival, es­pe­cial­ly giv­en the dif­fi­cul­ty of ob­tain­ing US dol­lars through lo­cal banks.

With­out its ex­port rev­enue, ASA En­ter­pris­es might have strug­gled to stay afloat.

The com­pa­ny’s piv­ot to ex­ports be­gan in earnest around 2016 to 2017, fol­low­ing its par­tic­i­pa­tion in the TTMA’s Trade and In­vest­ment Con­ven­tion (TIC), which opened new doors and high­light­ed the im­por­tance of di­ver­si­fy­ing be­yond the do­mes­tic mar­ket.

With 25 years of ex­pe­ri­ence and a clear vi­sion for the fu­ture, Yor­rick said ASA En­ter­pris­es is po­si­tion­ing it­self not just as a re­gion­al leader, but as a glob­al con­tender in the healthy snack in­dus­try.

Mean­while, Fresh Start has carved out its own path to in­no­va­tion and ac­claim.

The recog­ni­tion of Bard­dies marks a new chap­ter in Caribbean man­u­fac­tur­ing, where bold ideas and home­grown so­lu­tions are re­shap­ing the bev­er­age land­scape.

Bard­dies be­gan with a mar­gari­ta mix, not to be con­fused with a pre­mixed al­co­holic bev­er­age, but rather a high-qual­i­ty mix­er for bars, restau­rants and home use.

The prod­uct was de­vel­oped en­tire­ly in-house—from the for­mu­la­tion and pack­ag­ing to the brand­ing and de­sign.

Lo­cal limes are used to cre­ate the sig­na­ture flavour and in a unique twist.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, one of the stand­out in­no­va­tions in­tro­duced is the Bard­dies ul­ti­mate mar­gari­ta salt—a unique en­hance­ment to the cock­tail ex­pe­ri­ence that al­so pro­motes sus­tain­abil­i­ty.

Lime peels, typ­i­cal­ly dis­card­ed, are in­stead dried, ground, and blend­ed in­to the salt used to rim the glass.

The Bard­dies line in­cludes man­go daiquiri and pas­sion fruit and all fruit in­puts, ex­cept for straw­ber­ries, are sourced from lo­cal farm­ers. Flavour essences are al­so sup­plied by do­mes­tic ven­dors.

Avail­able on lo­cal shelves, Fresh Start is now ac­tive­ly pur­su­ing re­gion­al ex­pan­sion, with Bar­ba­dos tar­get­ed for roll-out be­fore the end of the year, fol­lowed by St Lu­cia, Grena­da, and Guyana for Bard­dies.

Bard­dies is the third prod­uct line un­der the Fresh Start um­brel­la, join­ing its ready-to-drink fresh juices and con­cen­trates.

Sun Kow ex­plained the juices have seen a 15 per cent in­crease in do­mes­tic sales over the past two years, dri­ven by con­sumer de­mand for con­ve­nience.

The con­cen­trates, while flat in growth, re­main pop­u­lar among bud­get-con­scious con­sumers and still are wide­ly used in ho­tels and restau­rants.

Fresh Start is ad­dress­ing this plateau by rolling out brand­ed dis­pensers across restau­rant chains and re­brand­ing the con­cen­trate line with more at­trac­tive pack­ag­ing.

Ex­port-wise, Fresh Start’s con­cen­trates are al­ready reach­ing Be­lize—where they’re used in a brew­ery—and the UK, where a dis­trib­u­tor serves the Caribbean di­as­po­ra.

Plans are un­der­way to tap in­to Cen­tral Amer­i­ca by mid-2026, fur­ther ex­pand­ing the com­pa­ny’s foot­print.

De­spite its suc­cess­es, Fresh Start has had some chal­lenges.

Sun Kow said for­eign ex­change volatil­i­ty has im­pact­ed in­put costs, par­tic­u­lar­ly for com­modi­ties like sug­ar and or­ange juice con­cen­trate, which are trad­ed on the New York Stock Ex­change in fu­tures con­tracts.

These prices fluc­tu­ate dra­mat­i­cal­ly, with or­ange juice con­cen­trate in­creas­ing by 300 per cent dur­ing COVID and re­main­ing un­sta­ble since.

Space con­straints at the com­pa­ny’s cur­rent Fac­to­ry Road lo­ca­tion in Diego Mar­tin have al­so prompt­ed a search for a larg­er fa­cil­i­ty to sup­port growth.

How­ev­er, Fresh Start re­mains com­mit­ted to nav­i­gat­ing these hur­dles with re­silience and in­no­va­tion.

Bard­dies is set­ting its sights on be­com­ing the cock­tail mix­er of choice across the Caribbean and be­yond, with a vi­sion that in­cludes place­ment in all-in­clu­sive re­sorts and cruise ships through­out the re­gion whether in St Louis or St Lu­cia. Sun Kow said the prod­ucts should be a sta­ple be­hind the bar, el­e­vat­ing the cock­tail ex­pe­ri­ence.

He added that the lo­cal cock­tail cul­ture has seen a re­mark­able evo­lu­tion over the past five to ten years, es­pe­cial­ly in mar­kets tra­di­tion­al­ly dom­i­nat­ed by beer and rum, not­ing that as con­sumers be­come more ex­posed to glob­al trends through trav­el, so­cial me­dia, and en­ter­tain­ment, their palates have grown more ad­ven­tur­ous and dis­cern­ing.

The re­cent rise in al­co­hol prices has cre­at­ed a rip­ple ef­fect across the bev­er­age in­dus­try, but for Bard­dies, it presents a strate­gic ad­van­tage.

Sun Kow said while the im­pact has not been felt di­rect­ly just yet, the brand ben­e­fits from be­ing priced low­er than many im­port­ed mix­ers, giv­ing it a com­pet­i­tive edge.

He said bars and restau­rants, now un­der pres­sure to pre­serve their prof­it mar­gins, could be in­creas­ing­ly open to switch­ing to lo­cal­ly pro­duced al­ter­na­tives that of­fer qual­i­ty with­out the pre­mi­um price tag.