Welcome And The Big Question

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Strictly Facts, a Guide to Caribbean History and Culture, hosted by me, Dr. Alexandria Miller. Strictly Facts teaches the history, politics, and activism of the Caribbean and connects these themes to contemporary music and popular culture. Hello, hello, people Wagyuan Pangwata Guan, and welcome back to another episode of Strictly Facts, a guide to Caribbean history and culture, where we explore the ideas, the histories, and innovations shaping the Caribbean and its global diaspora. Today's episode takes us into the world of food, but not the way we often think about it. When Caribbean food enters global conversations, it's usually through recipes, restaurants, or even tourism, a lot of the time. These powerful cultural expressions, they're important to who we are, but they only represent part of the story. Behind every dish, there are deeper questions about agriculture, trade, labor, sustainability, and the economic futures of Caribbean societies. Continuing our theme for this month on Caribbean Futures, highlighting, especially for Caribbean American Heritage Month, we're exploring the idea of moving Caribbean food from recipes to systems. What would it mean to transform our rich culinary traditions into scalable food products and industries? Ones that support food security, create jobs, and build lasting economic infrastructure for the region. This conversation invites us to think beyond what tastes good and toward what sustains us economically, culturally, and collectively as a region and as a diaspora.

Meet Taymer Mason And Her Path

SPEAKER_01 1:42

Before we jump into today's conversation, I'm really grateful to have Tamar Mason here joining us on the show. Tamar is a food scientist and Caribbean product developer with over 20 years of experience across multiple sectors. Tamar, I'll turn to you and ask you to tell a little bit more about yourself to our listeners, where in the region you call home, and what inspired your interest in food sustainability, product concepts, and cultural storytelling.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

Thank you for having me. And I want to say hello to all of your readers. And my name is Tamar Mason, and I'm from the beautiful island of Barbados, and I call Barbados home. I'm only one month in and have just moved back to Barbados after 20 years of living in Europe and some of the wider Caribbean, and I'm really excited to be on your show. So how did I get into food? I got into food in a very unorthodox way. A lot of Caribbean um households, um, the daughter is supposed to know how to cook at a very early age. Um, I was not one of them. I was into my books, I was reading Sweet Valley High, different things, and I just I just never had an interest in cooking until one day one of my aunts came back from um America and she saw that I had no interest in cooking and she chastised me and it wasn't a compliment. And I said, you know what? This summer I'm going to learn to cook. And that one summer I set out, I was about 14 years old, and I set out to learn everything I wanted to learn about food, and I started to fall into a world of what can we use? What else can we use? Why are we making the same dishes every Sunday? Why can't we do this instead? And I started to question my parents, and they were like, this is tradition, and that and that's how I entered food. After I did my undergrad in microbiology, I did an internship at a food factory here in Barbados, and I think the rest was history. From the time they met me, they told me, you know what, you can stay, you can stay after graduation and you can have a full-time job here. And I started to develop products, I started to um take ownership of a lot of the projects that they had um there at the business. And that's how I really got into food, and I never left. I I just I've worked in all aspects of food. I've worked in HASAP, I've worked in food safety, I've worked in as an executive chef at a hotel, I have also worked in um in health and safety and product development. So I've worked in all aspects of food in terms of sustainability and and and falling in love with that. Um, in 2010, after moving to the island of St. Martin, or 2008, I couldn't find a job. And it was very difficult for me because I've just left school, I've just left university, and I left that job that I was in, and I couldn't find anything, and I I turned to food again, and I started to document a lot of the recipes that I grew up eating in Barbados because I was homesick, and I got a book deal very quickly after, and at that time I was vegan, and vegan wasn't popular back then in 2008, and I got this book deal and I started to go deeper into um food sustainability. In 2019, I returned to Barbados for a sabbatical, and I started to look at cassava deeply. I started to look at everything that we had around us. We were making a lot of food products, like cassava flour, bread, fruit flour, and different things, but a lot of people didn't know how to use it. And I started experimented making crackers, and I started making a lot of plant-based products. And my I had a friend, she had a gluten intolerance, and she said to me, I love your plant-based meat made out of gluten, but I can't eat it anymore. It's making me ill. And I said, Well, what can I do? She said, You're a food scientist, you'll you'll figure it out. And I turned to cassava and pigeon peas, and that's how we created our first um meat analog using those two concepts: cassava for the um the structure and the pigeon pea for the protein and the fiber. And that's how I got into it.

SPEAKER_01 5:51

Thank you for sharing. I I think you know, what you're talking about sort of undergirds my initial uh question, I think, for this podcast.

Tourism Economies And Import Dependence

SPEAKER_01 6:00

Um, because, you know, as I mentioned in the intro, we talk about food and it it's often about recipes, or as you said, you know, which day we niam stew peas and which day is fried chicken day and what have you. Um, but there are larger problems, I think, especially when it comes to our food. And I really think one thing that undergirds that is the economies in the Caribbean, right? As you were sort of also alluding to, you know, what to do with the cassava flour, et cetera. Especially from my perspective, um, you know, Caribbean economies are heavily reliant on tourism, which means, you know, they're obviously vulnerable to external shocks, whether that's natural disasters, economic downturns, et cetera. But that often also means that because of our reliance on tourism, there is sort of a prioritization on consumption over production, right? Meaning that wealth doesn't always, you know, sit and circulate in the ways that are important for us locally, as opposed to, you know, building long-term infrastructure. And so I sort of just wanted to turn to you in your expertise as a food scientist, and maybe give you an opportunity to share how you think, you know, there are major issues or gaps within the Caribbean's various economies, um, and how, you know, things like foreign investment, um, you know, dependency on tourism and all these other things also shape the problems that we're going to be talking about going forward in the episode.

SPEAKER_00 7:33

Well, post-emancipation return to sugar, especially in Barbados, returned to sugar, and that was our moneymaker, and then tourism kind of took over over time. Um, a lot of the issues are that a lot of the islands have a high um import bill, a really, really high import bill. And when people go to the islands, they see all this food, these mangles, and all the bread fruit, and they're wondering how can an island have such a high import bill? Um, a lot of our food systems have been shared externally by um North America and Europe. So a lot of the things that um we eat are not always from the region. So that's why we have a um a high import bill. And a lot of things we import are things like rice, flour, and pastas, and and things that we're not really making in the region right now, and and and I'll and I'll talk about how we can make them in the region. But listen to go on to talk about the restaurant culture. Uh, restaurant culture is growing in the Caribbean, and that gives tourists uh experience. But the thing is, if we could create product out of these same recipes, we can create um economy, we can create more jobs and everything else. But we haven't done that successfully yet. There are few companies um in the Caribbean um that have done it successfully that started in the um in the 70s that have kind of worked out all their kinks over the last couple of decades, but we need to do more now because the the gate is closing and we went through those shocks, especially um seven years ago, and we need to kind of respond to it now. And it's not only growing um more crops, but it's how to convert these crops into products that people like and that the younger generation would like and everything else, and we need to start making them quickly. We don't have a lot of food um scientists in the region. A lot of them tend to like, um, they tend to graduate and leave and go and work in Europe or the US. So we don't have a lot of them in the region, and when we do have them, they're tending to work for a company for like for most of their career because it's stable. So the innovation sometimes happens from people who are not food scientists. Some of them cannot take it to the level that a food scientist can, and there's sometimes no framework for them to get the support. And and and let's talk about systems. We talk about um having food in the Caribbean and um and reducing the export bill. But if we don't have the systems in place for the food to turn into um into a viable product, then we are just going to have different people working in silos making amazing product, but it's not growing, it's not going anywhere. So let's look at how the systems work. Um, do you have any questions before I jump into that?

SPEAKER_01 10:15

No, we can we can talk about the systems. I think another part that I'd love for you to share as well is maybe why you think we've tended to focus more on that, like restaurant or universes culture as opposed to those broader systems. But yeah, feel free to share.

The System Gaps Blocking Scale

SPEAKER_00 10:30

Yes. So a lot of us uh in the Caribbean, we are very proud of our culture, our heritage. And a lot of people think that doing something outside of the culture and heritage is wrong. So a lot of people never feel like they have permission to go against the status quo and to create a product. If I tell the average person in the Caribbean to create a product with breadfruit or do something with breadfruit, the first thing they're going to do is steam it and put some saltfish gravy on it. And we know, and that would taste amazing or make a breadfruit cuckoo. But if I tell them, take that same breadfruit, mash it into zero zero flour, add an egg, and then roll it and turn it into breadfruit paparadel, they're going to tell me that I'm asking for too much. But that's easy, and that's pasta that we are importing, and that's pasta that we can make in the region. You see where I'm going with this? The thing is, we need to give people and the young people permission to um to uh to think outside the box and to create and look at food in new and exciting ways. So um one of the things I want to jump into here is the systems. The reason why we don't have a lot of um food product um in the region is because we don't have the systems set up yet. First of all, the raw materials sometimes are inconsistent, and a lot of the things that we get in the region are seasonal. And while I respect the seasons of the region, if you're making a product to sell and to scale, you have to have constant demand. Secondly, there's not a lot of cooperation um amongst the islands. When we have that cooperation amongst the islands, a lot of things are going to be better because you know what? If Guadalupe has excess um cassava or excess breadfruit, we can get it in Barbados, they can get it in Dominica. We need to share what we have because all islands are different. Some are volcanic and some are limestone, and some produce more food than um and than others, and we need to share the food amongst each other. Another thing is money. Money is really important. If there's no loans, if there's no revolving loan, if there are no loans for entrepreneurs that are easy to access, they're not going to be willing to um to put all of their energy into creating food products. So we need more loans in the region for um for food entrepreneurs. Another thing is packaging. Packaging has always been an issue in the region, and it's not because we don't know how to package well, is that the availability of packaging. Um, a lot of the packaging imports, they import things that are are um that have a good sell through, like those pet bottles that you put the natural juices in. You see a lot of them in all the islands. But when it comes to specialty jars, you'll see one or two jars. So then everybody that is making sauces has to use the same jar. And then when it comes to putting your product against another product in the US or in Europe, you're not going to look the same, you're not going to look as kitted uh as kitted out. So we need to start to look um at our packaging a bit and take our packaging seriously. We know that we can make the product. It's easy to make the product, but to get the packaging right and to get the messaging right as well. So um, those are the things in the system that needs to work. And for even from my experience here, I moved back here a month ago and trying to open a business in Barbados and a full business in Barbados and to get duty free exemption, I don't know where to go. There needs to be spaces on the internet for each entrepreneur or any full entrepreneur or cosmetic entrepreneur to go on to see what's the guide. And I've been documenting mine so that people can follow suit after when I like when I go through the process, I can just plug and play. I can say this is what you have to do. But we have to get those sites up, like all the systems are scattered. We need to get them in one place. So these are the systems that stop food production. And in terms of scaling, a lot of times when you tell somebody in a region that you want to scale, even me, sometimes I think it's a thousand bottles. It's not a thousand bottles because if a large chain asks you um for product, they want to put it in all of their stores in all of their states or providences. They they want to get it everywhere. So are we ready for that? No, we're not ready for that. Can we be ready for that in the future? Of course we can, but we need to work together. Even if it takes one island to do it well, and everybody else can copy or to kind of use that formula as the like a benchmark, I think that would be the way to go.

Legacy Products That Outlive Founders

SPEAKER_00 15:10

Thank you for sharing that.

SPEAKER_01 15:11

What you brought in terms of, you know, even your example about breadfruit and its potential to turn into um flour, which could then turn, you know, and make pasta. That got me thinking about your work on legacy food products and the fact that I, you know, I don't think that term has ever really come to my mind. Um, at least, and I don't know, I'm sure that also applies for a number of our listeners when it comes to our foods, right? We have various terms that we use, whether it's ground provisions and, you know, all of these things. But I would love for you to share with us um what you defined as a legacy food product and you know, what does it look like in practice for us, especially as a region? Why is it important for especially food, you know, Caribbean food entrepreneurs to think about our products in terms of, you know, things that can last beyond just individual businesses?

SPEAKER_00 16:05

Yeah. For me, when I define a legacy product, I will say a legacy product is something that can stand the test of time, um, is not dependent on the founder. So if the founder goes however, it can still continue for for generations and still have an impact on the um on the pop culture or the or the heritage of that particular nation. Now let's talk about some legacy products uh worldwide. Um when we think of Italy, I like to go to Italy a lot. And when I go to Italy, I buy up things like pasta, olive oil, um, things like um pistachio paste, and those are their legacy products. Um, if I go to India, I tend to pick up the spices there and all the vanilla, and I bring those home with me. Um, when I come to the Caribbean, we do have a lot of legacy products. We have our wet seasonings. Um, we would call it jerk in Jamaica, Green Seasoning in Barbados, or a piece in um uh in Haiti. And um, I would say the French West Indies, they also have a lot of um legacy um products like Sochien in Guadeloupe. And we do have them there, and they have to stand the test of time. Um, but now we we need to like kind of pivot and uh up the thing and do some more. So those things I would say that as it relates to legacy products, I like to see legacy products that are ambient, meaning that they're shelf-stable, that they're not um on cold storage, because it makes it easier for the food business to export, it's cheaper for them, and there's no wastage. So, in terms of something like um, we'll jump into ready meals after in another part of this talk. But if you have something like a ready meal, trying to export that to say Europe, it has a long cold chain, and then the price is going to go up, and then you can't compete with what is on the shelf in Europe. So a lot of these things we have to think about when we're creating legacy products, we need to create things that are more shelf stable. I'm not saying that um a cold chain product can't be a legacy product, it can be, but when the systems are in place, we still have issues in the region with systems in terms of maritime. Um, like right now, if I wanted something from Guadalupe, I never know where to begin. I don't really know how to get it from Barbados. So we have issues in terms of transport, linkages within um sea islands. Um, so that's why we call a legacy product. Anything that can stand the test of time, we have them, but we need to develop more if we want to compete with the international market. Now, in terms of wet seasoning, I'll give you a joke. I used to make wet seasoning in Toronto, and I would sell it. And um, there was one time I was selling that along with hot sauce, and people were tasting it on um on tortilla chips, and one person asked me if they can taste the seasoning. I tell them no, it's to season meat. And you know, and so I was at this um, this it was a place where they they had a lot of buyers, and I'm telling them no, they can't taste this product, they need to buy it and take it home to season meat, and I'm gone ho. And you know what? I eventually opened it, and people started to come to my table sampling the green seasoning, and they started eating it with chips. Did you know? I kid you not, the sale of my green seasonings that day went up. Nobody wanted to see the hot sauce, and guess what they use the green seasoning for? They use it as a dip to eat with chips. So you can see now. Which we would never think of. That was like last for me in the Caribbean. That's like we would never think of doing it. And even if we tried to do it, somebody would try to stop us. But it goes to show you how our food can be interpreted in different ways in different regions, because in North America, a lot of people use dry seasons when they are seasoning their food, and that seasons are not a part of the food culture, so to speak, there. So again, we have to think about if we are flexible enough to like think out of the box and sell out of the box as well.

SPEAKER_01 20:16

That's a great point. I think you know, you raised several issues, right? Whether that be like government and intergovernmental infrastructure, things like packaging and stuff, right? Um, also our own creativity, because again, just because things have been done this way for generations and eons doesn't mean we can't pivot in things. Um, you did raise a point about um, you know, shelf life and, you know, sort of stability, even package foods.

Shelf Life Food Security And Disasters

SPEAKER_01 20:45

And I'd I'd love for us to sort of dig into that a little bit and maybe have you share how does developing products that really help address larger regional challenges like food um security, you know, import dependence, right? I think when we combine some of those bigger frameworks with things like shelf life, right, it helps us to to revamp a little bit and also, you know, are there models in other parts of the world that we could certainly follow to to mirror this? Um, I think, you know, especially when it comes to post-hurricanes, especially, right? Just to take Jamaica specifically after Hurricane Melissa, there was so much, you know, discussion about where was hit was, you know, one of the parishes, my parish is seen as the breadbasket of Jamaica, right? What does that mean for the comeback for farmers? Also, everybody was talking about how market prices are through the roof, right? Naturally, because we've lost so much of our crops. And so I I have this understanding that, you know, we obviously as a region prioritize fresh foods, right? Our ability to grow foods, but I think there is a difference between shelf life and stability, right? Being able to access. Fresh foods, and then you know, when we pair that with various issues that we face as a region, like food insecurity, like natural disasters.

SPEAKER_00 22:09

Good question. That's a load of questions. I have a lot to say here. So one thing before I jump into that, I have to talk about standardization of recipes. No, sometimes when I develop a recipe, I will go into the kitchen and I will just make it and I will make it with my heart. And I know what I'm doing. I'm not, I have a skill next to me. I have everything next to me to put it down in my notepad. But it's just that thing that takes over the Caribbean spirit when you're cooking that you are not standardizing. And what happens to a lot of food brands, they don't have that kind of consistency. They don't have it all the time. So it changes. Sometimes you will taste a batch and it doesn't taste right or whatever. And that is because that is in our culture to cook with our heart. It's also in our culture to eat fresh foods. So putting a ready meal out there with a five-day shelf life, and I'm trying to do that in Barbados. We're going to see, and I'm going to see how that works. Because in Europe, we don't have a lot of frozen meals in Europe. If you look at all the meals that are out there, they're all chilled and they have a shelf life of seven days. Sometimes you get a little bit more on that. So, how do we get the region to eat like that? And I'm not trying to get the region to eat less fresh, but I'm also thinking widely about the aging population. A lot of the population is aging, and a lot of their some people never had children or whatever. What are they going to do? And I remember meeting a lot of elderly people in Europe, and I see them and I will see them buying a lot of ready meals, and they will buy it for the whole week because they don't have the energy to stand in that kitchen and cook anymore. How do we convert that into pharmacist and foods and cultural foods now for this segment and also for the hospitals to standardize things that they're not overwhelmed anymore, that we can cook for the diabetics, we can cook for the people that have hypertension. A lot of these issues need to be sorted even before we start to scale. As it relates to shelf life and stability and product development, I go right up to where we were talking about. Who are the food entrepreneurs? Are they getting the help and the support that they want to from food scientists? Maybe not. Maybe it's somebody that had a passion and food that is out there creating something and they're creating it because of the love of it, but they don't understand shelf life. They don't know even how to do a shelf life test. Um, some um islands don't even have um testing labs for food. How do we work that like how do we um cooperate? Can Barbados uh take food from Lake St. Vincent if they don't have one? Or vice versa, how are we cooperating? And we have to have larger food and and um conversations. A lot of times we have these climate change sustainability conversations about food, but we're not really addressing the systems and the cooperation. So I think that's where we need to start, right there. Um, in terms of stability, we have a very humid environment in a lot of countries, and when we are creating things, we're not thinking about that. We have to think about things that desiccate. And when we think about stability as well, we need to also think about how can it serve a country when um we have natural disasters. Everybody in the Caribbean has gone through this, but when we have natural disasters, they said to stock up on can and dry goods. We have a few canneries in the region that are canning biana sausages and and everything else, but what are we creating in terms of dry soups? What are we creating is um in terms of rations that can hold people, things that are lightweight, that people can stock up on, things that are affordable. When we're developing products, we need to think about what if. And and a lot of times we develop products because of our ego, because we we like something, but we're not thinking about the wider picture. So when we're developing, we really need to think about how can we help the region because these things are inevitable, the hurricanes are inevitable. Um, sometimes the um the the gates closing are are inevitable. How can we sustain ourselves? And that's the one of the major questions that anybody developing food needs to answer, but it's time to start doing even one product, even adding something, one product to your line that can help, um, it's a win.

SPEAKER_01 26:34

Pivoting, I I guess not really pivoting, but it's sort of in tandem with that. I'd love to get your take on if there are other, you know, and this could of course be outside of the Caribbean, if there are other cultures throughout the world that you've seen have done sort of what you're talking about, right? So finding um a particular product that, you know, they've they've pivoted and turned into a sort of something that's has a larger shelf life or, you know, that they've ch taken from their traditional food culture um and have really developed into being a successful product for us to then, you know, sort of use that model um and pivot in our own culture.

Global Models And New Ingredients

SPEAKER_00 27:16

I'm thinking, because I know that there's many of them, but the answer to that question is I always say this. I fell in love with uh fufu a year ago or two years ago, and um at first I didn't understand it. I had cucko in Barbados, and we had things that like breadfruit cocoa and those kind of formats, but fufu in a box, it's it's one of my favorite things ever. And I I always say that if if I'm hungry, fufu is always in that box, and that's one is a convenience food, but it's made out of um the flour of say green plantain or even things like dashin that we have here. Um, it has to be stabilized with potato starch because it doesn't form out well when it doesn't have that starch and it doesn't form into that starchy ball or anything else. And I think that's one thing that Africa gave to themselves, but no, it's in in uh in turn giving to the world that format of dry a dry carbohydrate um that is um that can be put in the box and can be like brought together very quickly with some water and heat. And I have developed something recently that kind of um is not on the same level as Fufu. So I looked at moringa. Moringa is growing radio and rampant in the region. I never grew up saying moringa, but it just appeared um um in some um somewhat. And what I did with that product is that people always look at you know taking pods and eating the seeds and using it for medicinal purposes. And I was like, you know what, I like these flowers, these flowers are spicy, the leaves don't taste too bad. So what I did is I took dried meringa and I converted it into a spice that you can sprinkle on food, add to your food to increase its nutritional value. So if you're eating rice, rice has X amount of calories, X amount of protein, but with one tablespoon of that meringue seasoning, you're going to increase all of your vitamins and minerals and it tastes good. And I think that that would probably change the way how people see merenga and use it in a fun way. We even put it on loaded fries, like giving that to somebody thinking that it's Italian season, but it's merenga, I think that's kind of cool.

SPEAKER_01 29:34

Definitely, I

Building Regional Solutions That Work

SPEAKER_01 29:35

agree. I do want us to um hold space a little bit for you maybe to talk about possible solutions, right? We've talked about various problems, whether that's you know, distribution pipelines and regional cooperations and partnerships. Um, but you know, what does it look in your mind, or what would you love to see in terms of how we can move from the sort of model of individual business success stories into you know building these actual systems that work across the region and work together?

SPEAKER_00 30:12

I think that um farmers need to step to the front because I think that they are the backbone to our existence. And I think that we rely on them so much, and we've had issues in the past with where farmers don't feel loved um by society, and and and and they're not encouraged to grow. I think the first solution is to get farmers and food producers in a room together so that we can start to work out what they have and what we can make with it. We have young minds ready to um um to do something in society, and I do think that um they need to do some um workshops where they can like kind of think about what they can create with these products. So I think that's one of the solutions to make creating food exciting, make it look rewarding, because if people don't see something is rewarding, they're not going to want to do it. Most young people want to be streamers now, and because it's rewarding, how can we make them want to be full entrepreneurs? We need to start showing them the way out of it and the way to success with it. So also even using a success story to show them you could be like her, you could be like this business. I think that's important. I do think that um uh another solution would be for the governments to make it easier for food entrepreneurs to operate. Um, a lot of them don't, and it's it and it has been that way forever, and it's because a lot of people never really talked about it. And if they make life easier for uh for food entrepreneurs, we'll have more of them. And making life easier for me is to remove the import duties on the packaging and remove the import duties on some of the raw material. I do think that entrepreneurs need to be creating from within the region and within what we have on the region at that point. But we can't say that because we're going to need binaries, we're going to need some preservatives sometimes, and we don't always make them. And it encourages um even scientists and young people to start being the ones that create those um those preservatives. Um, we research has always left behind in the region, and we need to um actually create a space for that research so that um more people are interested in um um in the industry. As it relates to scaling, um, I do think that some islands are small and and they might not be able to scale. But if one hand got cut, the other can um um can assist. The solution for that is the islands that can do the heavy lifting and the heavy scaling should be able to scale for to smaller um uh food entrepreneurs when they get to that level. Um, I don't think sometimes, even me, I have a product now. If I want to scale, I don't have anybody to turn to. I might have to go back into Europe to get it um scale, and that shouldn't be. Um there are existing food companies now making drinks sauces and what's not, and a lot of them don't like to white label, and and and it has been culturally like this. They don't want to make for other people, they just want to make their brand, and that's it. Then there's issues with NDAs. We don't have systems in place that are affordable for entrepreneurs to access NDAs, they have to go to a lawyer now and you know and spend a lot of money, and that's uh um something that a food entrepreneur doesn't have. So a lot of things has um will have to change, and those are the solutions to encourage uh existing food producers to white label so that um it makes space for more uh products. And one of the other solutions for me is if you're uh complaining as a region and saying, oh, we have a high import bill, we need to do an audit. What it is that we are um importing that is causing this bill to be so high? If it's rice, some of um islands in Barbados for sure we can't grow rice right now. Um, some other islands like um places, it's not islands, but places like Guyana, they have um that they can grow rice. Can we get from them? You know what I mean? Um, so a lot of these things have to, we have to have conversations on a regional level. So I um grew up um under the European Union system, and the European Union cooperates really well, and I would like to see that cooperation extend to CARICOM in a way um that the European Union um operates when it comes to food. Um we need full cooperation and we need exchange of information. We need databases that have um um that information. And we need to know when there's a glut. I'll buy um I'll buy those breadfruits from you, Dominica, when you have that glut. So I think those are the solutions right now, and I I want more young people, as I said, to see the um the um the joy of full science. And one thing I wanted to mention is that a lot of food entrepreneurs don't know that they can access um external investment. They think that that is only for um TV shows in America or in Europe. Not little of them could get investment. And because of this mindset, a lot of them don't want to grow. They kind of just make products for their um their community and what's not. Um, but we can um in the region, we can now access international investment. And we also need the literacy um in there. We need to understand that when an investor comes and offers uh and wants a 20% stake in the company, what does that mean for you as the owner? So um we we need to have that information. We need to show a success story in the region where you have uh uh an international investor investing into the company and it and is able to scale, even building a factory in that particular island and and scaling and exporting. Um, and one more thing a lot of food entrepreneurs always want to export. So before they even think of supplying to their community, they think about exporting because they don't think that they can get a good price for their product in their particular island. And that might be true or false, but the issue goes back is a bit deeper, and I'll say this a lot of supermarkets import their food and they get them from distributors, and distributors get them from another distributor, right? And a lot of supermarkets do not want to open their doors to small producers to do all the billing and everything else, they don't want to deal with it. So then if if a producer wants to get on a shelf, it's very challenging to get on the shelf in a lot of the regional supermarkets. There's some regional supermarkets that are very local forward, and there's some that are not. And you can't, at the end of the day, you can't tell somebody how to run a business, but people need to see where they can win when they are doing something and they need to see a win.

How The Diaspora Can Invest

SPEAKER_01 37:44

Those points, particularly your penultimate one on investment, also brought me to specifically thinking about diaspora um and you know, investment by the diaspora. Um, I think, you know, there are things that are certainly being done in terms of markets and um being able to ship certain things from the Caribbean to, for instance, the US, right? Um, or the fact that, you know, I can get a can of Aki. Not that I want to eat can Aki, but that's another story within itself, right? Um, how would you like to see our diaspora really playing a vivid and like, you know, important role, not just in, you know, supporting these businesses themselves, but really in terms of investing into um, you know, food sciences and food entrepreneurs from the region?

SPEAKER_00 38:39

Very good question. And this one's I'm going to give you a spinner where this is concerned. So um I was a part of the diaspora up to one month ago, and um I always um talk to people in the diaspora as it relates to that. So the diaspora right now is investing mostly in real estate in carabining because that's where the um the money is at the end of the day. Um, but uh giving you some different ways that the diaspora can invest in full sets, if not directly. We have direct investment like doing a fun and that kind of thing, where um promising companies can pull from. But how about creating a pipeline that the companies can send products to you so that you can feed the rest of the diaspora? You have the right to open an LLC in um in um in the US or a limited company in Europe, and if you have that right to do that, you can create uh a pathway for the small um entrepreneurs. And some businesses have done that already. There are some that are um selling Caribbean products online and um to the diaspora in uh in North America, and that's going pretty well because you're not missing home as much um when like when you have your little comfort keepers. But um I'll say this the diaspora can also create um pool on real estate for certain um stores and that kind of thing as well, because a lot of the times we think of diaspora investment as only creating the fun and like giving back to some of the full companies, but how about them leasing a warehouse, um, leasing um a space that or we say in French EPC, uh a fine grocery store or um or even an online store that people can buy that at. So there's a lot of different ways that the diaspora can invest, and it's and and and these are smaller ways until the confidence is there to um invest more heavily into promising companies. Um again, they can um put their funds into um certain um governmental bodies, and the governmental bodies can put out a call for um businesses to come to get that funding as well, or those grants as well, so they can also create grants um in their communities as well.

SPEAKER_01 41:11

You make a great point. I thought of um like virtual businesses like Carib Shopper in that question, where you know you can definitely order from them and you know get whatever regional peppa sauce, whatever it is.

SPEAKER_00 41:24

But again, I I think that even beyond something like that, I think that um there are lots of people in the diaspora looking for something else to do, um, or even people that are retired that still want to do something, they can create spaces um for these particular food businesses in many ways in their communities, in their churches, and get the products moving, get people to tasting the products and what's not. It's not only money, it's it's it's access to certain markets and to certain people. Wonderful, wonderful.

Food In Songs And Popular Culture

SPEAKER_01 42:00

Um, I think that'll bring me to my penultimate question. Everybody knows um of every strictly facts episode. I'm always in love with the way that we connect so many different parts of our culture to popular culture, and in that I mean usually music, um, but also, you know, books, poetry, um, novels, etc. In in preparation for this episode, I kept singing Super Cat's Vineyard Patti. Um, that also led me down a weird a line where I said Super Cat Vineyard Potty, then it brought me to the Super Cat and Heavy D song, which is an inspiration for one of Protege's latest songs called At With Eat. Um, I also thought about various Caribbean folk songs that talk about food. And so I would love to turn to you and ask you what are some of your favorite examples of how Caribbean food shows up in our popular culture?

SPEAKER_00 42:55

I'm an old millennial, so this song. Um, I would think for me, I grew up with this one song in mind, and you might not know it. But you know, Stampango in Jamaica, we call it fish cakes in Barbados. And I was a little girl, and it would come over every time on local TV, and basically it would go fish cakes and bakes every bajan does make, and they would talk about the method. You put in the salt fish, you put in the flour, spice it up with seasoning, and add a version of soco powder, meaning that the baking powder was the soap powder. So I think that that song lives in my head rent-free um as it relates to food culture and my heritage and everything else. And we don't hear it enough. I need to call the radio station to put it back on, especially during independence. It's a lovely song, and it teaches you basically how to make the fish cake.

SPEAKER_01 43:53

That's a wonderful example. I'll be sure to add it to our strictly fact syllabus for our listeners to check out.

A 40 Year Vision For Caribbean Food

SPEAKER_01 44:00

Um, I do want us to close with maybe uh a hopeful note towards uh a wider future, right? And so if we were to think about, you know, the Caribbean region, Caribbean food economies 20, 30, 40 years ahead, right? Um, what would it truly really look like for us to be investing in our food systems? Um, what role do you think entrepreneurs, various communities would play in governments, right? Definitely, um, would play in transforming Caribbean food from something we celebrate culturally into something that also sustains us economically for generations to come.

SPEAKER_00 44:42

I think it will start from the collective conscience of the people in the region, to be honest. I think it starts with them um making more edible spaces in their own homes, having that respect and full sovereignty. Um, it also will look like governments having not only stockpiling, but having um spaces for ambient full storage in case of any um natural disaster, introduction of freeze drying, especially in terms of technology, so that we can freeze dry a lot of the things uh for a rainy day or a not so rainy day, um, it would look like um more um or brands listed in um the more affluent um supermarkets um overseas. And and and the reason why I say that is because a lot of the times we'll say to entrepreneurs, if you can't scale, go gourmet. Because when you can't do a lot of products, 100,000 um in in in one skew, you can make 5,000 in a skew, but it will be gourmet, it will be more expensive. So I I would think that we should have a place, just like Asian food has a place, and um, and you will see all of the amazing Indian sauces, like the butter chicken sauces, having a place um on certain shelves and outside of um communities, because sometimes you will only see Caribbean products where you have a Caribbean demographic. So I would like to see more of our products being celebrated um outside of that. That's what I see for the next 40 years, and what I would like to also see is that we um focus um on covering more of our arable land. There's a lot of arable land that is not um that doesn't have anything right now, and also focus on fruit. There's some islands that do not grow any fruit, and that you can't find any local fruit on sat islands, believe it or not, there are islands like this that exist, and I will I would like to see more local fruit being grown in the Caribbean, and I want Caribbean farmers to be more uh adventurous. A lot of us never thought that grapes could grow in the Caribbean. Uh, and and my dad has been growing grapes for like 20 years, and we I always have a grapevine and have grapes, and people will be like, You you grew that at home. And they wouldn't believe me, but to be more adventurous, there's a lot of things that we could be growing that we are importing. We have the climate for grapes, we need to grow grapes, you know, and we have the climate to do strawberries, especially a lot of the more um uh mountainous islands can grow some um strawberries, do more of that because you can do it, and then there's a once you create it, there's a market for it. And that's what I have to say.

SPEAKER_01 47:43

Beautifully said, thank you so much, Tamar, for joining us um for this episode. I think you know, one thing I'm really pushing us all to do and think about for Caribbean American Heritage Month is think about the future of the Caribbean. And this I think is one primary way that we can definitely do that, not just in the immediate future, but how we are thinking about, you know, our lives and the generations of our communities to come. So with that, I thank you again so much for joining me for this episode for our Strictly Facts family. Um, I will be sure to tag Tamar in all the social media posts and everything on the Strictly Facts website. And you can be sure to follow her for more if you're definitely into food science and wanting to learn more, or even get your own products off the ground in terms of you know becoming food entrepreneurs yourselves. And so with that, thank you all. Until next time, look a more.