🇹🇹 CARIBBEAN BUDGET INTELLIGENCE™
Thursday, November 6, 2025
Focus: Layer 5 – Private Sector Climate | Layer 6 – Trade & Integration
📊 The Quick Math
Exports: $4.2 B Imports: $7.8 B
We’re buying almost twice what we sell — yet three family brands quietly figured out how to win.
🏆 3 Caribbean Wins That Deserve Headlines
🥭 Fresh Start Juices → Pivoted from juices → “Barddies” cocktail mixers. Won TIC 2025 Best Booth.
💧 Blue Waters Products → +54 % exports (2024) and now manufactures for other brands.
🌶️ Baron Foods (St. Lucia) → 50 % of output exported to 25 countries (including Cuba).
Three winners. One pattern: they all scaled without waiting for government.
💰 The Budget Backdrop
Government allocated TT $793.7 M to agriculture this year.
Less than 20 % reaches export-ready firms.
So while private companies hustle for foreign exchange, the budget is still funding domestic survival.
That’s the real disconnect between policy and progress. (Layers 1 & 4)
🇯🇲 What Jamaica and St. Lucia Figured Out
Busha Browne (🇯🇲) targeted the 10–15 % US minority-supplier quota decades ago → now on shelves from Whole Foods to Harrods.
Baron Foods (🇱🇨) pooled bottle orders and shipping with competitors → cut costs 28 %, opened Cuba.
📈 They didn’t wait for policy reform. They collaborated around trust and data.
🚢 The What-If
What if Fresh Start’s mixers + Blue Waters’ logistics + five other bottlers shared one export container to Jamaica?
Unit cost ↓ 40 %
Revenue ↑ 8×
USD inflow ↑ (region sorely needs it)
Carbon emissions ↓ 22 % (Layer 7)
What’s blocking it? Not policy. Not product.
👉 It’s trust.
⚠️ The Trust Problem Nobody Talks About
We’re fighting for shelf space instead of container space.
Why?
👩👩👧 Family business ego → “This recipe is mine.”
💸 Scarcity mindset → “If you win, I lose.”
🚫 Zero-sum thinking → “Better small alone than big together.”
Meanwhile 🇯🇲 exports $2.1 B food & beverage, 🇱🇨 ships to 25 markets.
They collaborated. We’re still guarding trade secrets no one is trying to steal.
💡 The Ah-Ha for CEOs
💧 Blue Waters proved growth comes from manufacturing for competitors.
🥭 Fresh Start proved innovation means new partnerships, not new products.
🌶️ Baron proved scale starts with a shared truck, not a shared dream.
Collaboration is the new capital. (Layers 5 & 6)
🧭 The Macro Reality
At 74.7 % debt-to-GDP, T&T has limited fiscal space.
Exports aren’t optional — they’re the new budget line item.
Every container we fill together is one less loan we need tomorrow.
📞 Your Move
Keep competing for Massy shelf space — or call that “competitor” and split a container this month.
One call can shift your entire business model from local to regional.
💬 What would make you trust another Caribbean brand enough to export together?
Hit reply — your answer may show up in the next Budget Intel Brief.
💡 The Takeaway
Fresh Start pivoted. Blue Waters collaborated. Baron exported.
The question isn’t can we do it together — it’s why haven’t we yet?
💥 We’re not short on talent — just trust.
Melissa Pascal
Economics (York) | MBA (Lok Jack GSB)
Founder, Caribbean Budget Intelligence™
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