If small and medium-sized enterprises and new businesses are to survive and compete, especially in these tough economic times, it can no longer be business as usual in Barbados, said Alison Kern, owner of Relish Epicurea.
Residents had less disposable income, Kern said, and she was already taking steps to mitigate the impact by developing a business model to support local entrepreneurs and provide a new dining experience in Barbados.
“The idea was based on developing a business model to create a forum for vocational training. Everybody is talking about entrepreneurial development.
“I think at the end of the day the only way you are going to develop entrepreneurs is to actually develop an environment that they can come into and actually develop and work through, as opposed to suddenly saying ‘I am an entrepreneur’.
“You can’t just become an entrepreneur. You need to have a starting point,” she said.
The Jamaican-born said two of the main challenges she has had since opening her business were sourcing raw materials on a consistent basis and attracting the desired human resources.
“A model like this in [Britain] or the United States would have no issues because all the raw materials would be there and the human resource pool would be there,” she said.
“What has happened is that people become complacent and I think some are spoilt. Folks really need to understand that nowadays the eight-hour output is critical to the survival of any business, and if you are only outputting six hours, it is not balancing back. And some people are quite happy to go and sign [up for] unemployment [benefits], actually,” she said.
The 53-year-old said she had stirred up a level of “excitement” amongst local farmers as she sources products from them and she was “doing a lot of work with local meat providers”.
“And then as far as the human resources go, we are now starting to attract people who are [interested] in the business from a performance perspective as opposed to coming in and just having a salary; you really have to be ambitious, and it is working.”
Relish was opened in April 2011 at the Limegrove shopping mall in Holetown, St James. It is a gourmet restaurant and café with a wine centre. Relish Epicurea currently employs 12 people.
Duties on imported items, some of which make up the menu, were “the show stoppers”, said Kern.
“[We] need to have unique products and it’s through raw materials that the whole menu is created – the base product is critical to the success of the menu. So ultimately you have to import at times,” she said.
Kern, who has over 25 years’ experience working in a number of areas including hospitality, retail and business development, said setting up her business “wasn’t too difficult” despite the world recession and depressed local economy.
In fact, the entrepreneur told BARBADOS BUSINESS AUTHORITY she had no fears and was already planning to expand her business with another location identified in the north.
“Business has been exciting and challenging, of course, because of the challenging economic climate. But generally it has been exciting because Relish is such a multi-faceted business model,” she said.
“In the business plan we have something called Relish Pods and we expect them to be in sea ports, airports and hotel lobbies over the next five years. Each pod can represent something different; they can represent a coffee shop, a bakery, a salad bar or a wine bar, [but] this is our flagship.
“We also have another location which we hope to deploy in December,” said Kern, and she was confident in the current location and concept of the business.
Sitting on approximately 1 500 square feet of land, Relish saw more business during the winter months. But according to Kern, “We are very lucky; we have carved a nice little niche into the local market.”
She said that while the business “is quite sustainable, we need to outreach more and get some more programmes going in terms of demonstrations and educating more people on healthy eating habits to continue the interest.”
She said business operators were being forced to constantly introduce new methods of attracting customers and staying in business and she believed the next 12 months will be harsh.
“It is going to be tough. There is very little disposable income in the Barbados economy right now and that is related to tourism arrivals.
“So it is going to be hard, but as I say, it is a worldwide situation and it doesn’t mean that we have to accept it. We just have to continue to be innovative to stay [in business],” she said.
Kern added that the Limegrove lifestyle centre “will be iconic”, and hopefully the development of her business concept, product offering and people “will result in some profit”.
