The need to increase her income might have been the reason Sherry Clarke started making her Bajan confectionary, but her love for doing things is what keeps her going.
“Dorcas Delights came from the book of Acts and the lady called Dorcas who was very handy. She used to do a lot of stuff with her hands, I find my hands can do a lot of stuff as well so I named the business Dorcas Delights,” she told BARBADOS BUSINESS AUTHORITY.
It started seven years ago, the St Philip-based micro businesswoman said that she was looking for something that could be made with all natural materials that were Barbadian and opted for nut cakes, a variety of sugar cakes, tamarind syrup, tamarind balls, tamarind pepper sauce, traditional pepper sauce, and gooseberry syrup. Therefore, when the response to the products went “very well” she simply continued.
“Back in 2007 when I started, I sold them at my sister’s restaurant – Bay Tavern – in Martin’s Bay, St John and the response was very good. It motivated me to keep going and trying new things.
“The first product I did was my signature nutcake. Everywhere you go you find a smaller nutcake, but I started with that (size) because I just didn’t know what I was doing.
“So, I just dropped a nutcake and then people responded well so I didn’t want to back down on the size and I kept it.
“When you see my nutcake you know it’s mine,” Clarke said.
While she liked the customers’ rave reviews, she did not let their responses go to her head. Instead she set about to improve on the products and try to come up with new flavours and additional products which led her to create the rum and raisin sugar cake and tamarind sauce.
“I just wanted to get flavours that were different, the same concept but something different. I wanted to have a sugar cake that when you looked at it, you could see the raisins. I actually attempted a tamarind sugar cake but it didn’t come out exactly how I wanted it but I will go back at it again” she said optimistically.
What she has learnt during those years is to harvest the fruits when they are in season and “take full advantage of it”.
She stores the gooseberries and “a lot” of the tamarinds for an entire year so that she has a constant supply for the syrups and sauce.
Clarke did not participate in any formal classes to learn how to make the confectionary but she attended a course at the Barbados Hospitality Institute last June where she learnt how to make sauces and to improve her skills. She truly likes the fact that the products are 100 per cent Bajan.
“Everything is locally grown here, harvested here and done here,” she added. “We’re also looking at bringing back black bitch and fudge. I tried the black bitch but it did not work but I’m going to try again.”
Part of her business strategy is to offer her sweet treats for special events such as weddings and anniversaries.
“If you have a party you can get different colours and we can do the same thing for weddings,” said Clarke who noted that her two daughters – Kimeisha and Kiana Clarke assist her.
Agrofest was the first large exhibition she participated in and she described the response as “pretty good”.
“People have really been responding to the rum and raisin sugar cake in particular and the tamarind sauce which can be used as a condiment. That only started last year. I came to Agrofest because I felt it was a good chance to see how it would go because this is my first time. I wasn’t ready to showcase my products before and I still have to work on my labelling but I wanted feedback.
“My labelling is not the best and I want to work on it to make it much more attractive … I would like to have all the nutritional facts on it before I go forward and get it in the supermarket and push it more.
“In three years, I would like to see all of my products in as many supermarkets across the island as possible. I really want Dorcas Delights to get as far as it can go, beyond that it would be through the Caribbean and further,” Clarke said with a smile. (GBM)
