Making sugar sweet – Belize Sugar Industries pushes direct consumption sugar to Belizean market

Published by BBNTEAM at October 15, 2024

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Posted: Tuesday, October 15, 2024. 2:16 pm CST.

By Aaron Humes: If there is one place in Belize where you can expect to find sugar in large quantities, it would be at the warehouses on the compound of Belize Sugar Industries Limited (BSI) outside Orange Walk Town.

Shawn Chavarria, Financial Manager at ASR/BSI, confirmed that as of the end of September, there are approximately 7.5 million pounds of white sugar and 2.2 million pounds of brown sugar in stock, sufficient to meet demand for the next three and a half months. Despite this, some retailers are still imposing limits.

That’s because Belizeans consume up to 3 million pounds of sugar monthly – about 2.2 million white, 800 thousand brown – and somewhere between Tower Hill and the supermarket shelf, some of the sweet stuff is disappearing, likely over the borders to Guatemala and Mexico.

While BSI has long been calling for an increase in the controlled prices of white and brown sugar, currently 75 and 39 cents per pound respectively, on a recent tour of its warehouse, it showed off another way it has hit on to potentially stall the alleged smuggling – pre-packaged, refined, direct consumption sugar, a version of which is already on sale in the CARICOM market.

According to Chavarria, BSI has recently been selling directly to manufacturers and supermarkets but it does not consider this efficient because of the necessary safety standards. Domestic sales have increased seven percent year-over-year from 34.3 million to 36.7 million and a heavier increase since 2020.

As for the packaged DC sugar, sold in kilograms rather than pounds, Chavarria says BSI’s investment will ensure that they can quickly start selling as soon as the legislative framework is amended – in fact, they have an emergency store of brown sugar available almost immediately.

Eldy Smith, ASR/BSI Supply Chain Manager, says Belize’s ‘Domino’ brand has been doing well regionally: “I think that they are very happy with this type of presentation in the car recall market. And I think that we’ve got very good news from them, right? Especially since they’re saying that it’s, directly from a container, they can put it onto the shelf.”

But Minister of Agriculture Jose Mai said the Cabinet still has some questions it wants to be answered so it has held off: “Cabinet decided it was the best interest for us, it was best for us to wait until the Commission of Inquiry is over for us to address that increase in price because packaged sugar does not come only as packaged sugar, it comes at a cost…We’ve asked them in the last proposal to give us the figures [for] bagging sugar. What is the cost? They haven’t given it to us yet, but we’re still asking them, give us what is their cost, what is their added cost for bagging sugar. And we will analyze it and I can take it to Cabinet again, if Cabinet approves, then we move ahead. That’s a decision for Cabinet to make.”

And the head of Cabinet, Prime Minister John Briceño, concedes that a combination of solutions may be necessary, but not at the cost of a higher cost of living: “We need to find a balance. I understand the challenges, Belizeans are still facing with inflation. Despite that the numbers are going down, it goes down compared to last year, not to 2020. So, we understand that, we live that every day, and we live the challenges of that, not only in Belize. Worldwide, there is not a country in the world that is not facing that challenge, and we’re doing as best as we can.”

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