Business View Caribbean - April 2015 79
fulfill the orders and keep the quality and standards.
We want to commercialize and industrialize. But what
we’re doing is a traditional taste, so we don’t want our
taste to become a commercialized taste.”
The main product is still the traditional chocolate,
though the company has done research into how to
produce other items that has generated positive feed-
back. Saunders drove an initiative that’s added cocoa
butter to the product line, as well edible chocolates
and a flavored liqueur.
“It was a quest for knowledge,” she said. “If something
is made, there has to be a process. Actually finding out
the process is difficult, because it wasn’t actually done
here locally or there wasn’t a school to tell you ‘OK, it
is done this way’ or ‘It is done that way.’ So it was trial
and error and very costly, buying machinery that didn’t
work and buying again.
“I think I can build on it now, because I do know how
it is done.”
Saunders soaked in some additional knowledge as
part of her participation in WEAmericas (Women’s En-
trepreneurship in the Americas) program, which lever-
ages public-private partnerships to increase women’s
economic participation and address three key barriers
women confront when starting and growing SMEs: ac-
cess to training and networks, access to markets and
access to finance.
Program partners provide training and mentoring to
women entrepreneurs throughout Latin America and
the Caribbean, with a focus on business growth; sup-
port market access initiatives in countries throughout
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