Business View Caribbean | October 2019

51 BUSINESS VIEW CARIBBEAN OCTOBER 2019 THE EAST CAR I BBEAN GROUP OF COMPANI ES ECFM was nicknamed the “Mill of the Islands” and it remained, for many years, the only flour mill in the OECS. “We were the first ones to be interested in a flour milling business,” says Haslam. “There was a local entrepreneur called Philip Veira who had a successful hardware, supermarket and bakery and he had a vision of setting up a flour mill in St. Vincent. That was really the genesis of the company. He registered it and brought in the equipment, which sat here idle for a while, until he partnered with another local businessman, Rudolph Baynes, who was the agent for the Canadian company, Maple Leaf Mills. Mr. Baynes proposed a joint venture with Maple Leaf Mills, the Government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Sir Philip. Nelson Flour and Purity Flour were being imported from Canada into St. Vincent then, and those are the brands that we got going with, along with the flagship brand Cream of the Islands and Easy Bake packaged flour. Today, the partnership remains the same: 40 percent Maple Leaf Mills out of Canada, 20 percent the Government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and 40 percent P.H. Veira Investments.” In 1981, the ECGC’s industrial operations diversified by way of a packaging plant that was acquired to meet the ECFM’S growing demand for 100-lb flour bags. In 1982, the ECGC invested in a feed mill to manufacture its own animal feeds. After that, it stepped sideways from wheat to rice, adding a state-of-the-art cargo rice milling facility— the East Caribbean Rice Mills (ECRM) — to its Campden Park location in 1988. With so much raw material being sourced from Guyana for the new rice mill, it wasn’t long before the ECGC sat in discussions with the Guyana government to purchase one of their local mills. In 1990, Caricom Rice Mills became their newest entity. Nearly two decades later, the ECGC obtained the assets of Bottlers (St. Vincent) Ltd. and became a manufacturer of aerated beverages, energy drinks, and bottled water. This latest acquisition takes the number of ECGC subsidiaries to six. “We have Premier Rice Brand - Three Jewels - Being packed for local market Technical Manager, Ewan Martin