Barbadian milk once again for Trinidadian shelves

Milk flows from Barbados into Trinidad as Banks Holdings Ltd resolves trade barrier dispute.

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad and Tobago, Thursday July 26, 2012 - Two containers of milk products have now been shipped from Barbados to the twin-island after Banks Holding Limited (BHL) received clearance a month after escalating its complaints against of barriers to entry to government level.

"We are pleased about these containers off to Trinidad and hope there are more in the future. The value of the two containers is approximately US$56,000," BHL managing director and chief executive officer, Richard Cozier, reportedly told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC).

"However, when you penetrate the market for the first time it takes times to get into the various channels and on the shelves; this entails a lot of sampling. Given the size of the market in Trinidad and that we get the acceptance we believe we will, then this shipment should be repeated every two weeks if it goes as projected," he said.

Last month Cozier accused Trinidad of deliberating blocking Pine Hill Dairy milk and juice products over a 18-month-long labelling dispute.

But he said early this month that most of the difficulties were resolved in a two-hour meeting in Port of Spain and that the company would now change the labels to conform to the Trinidadian standard over the next six months.

"Both sides have a better understanding of what is required. There were some errors in some of the statements made and there were some misunderstandings in what we took from their instructions," Cozier told reporters as the first shipment made its way to Port of Spain.

"All of that has been resolved and we have a six-month window that we don't have to do anything with existing packaging; we already have new designs for the package to become compliant. We do believe that if the product takes off we would have no problems being ready after that first six months.

"Realistically we don't estimate to be dominant or the major player in the Trinidad market. However, any percentage will certainly impact significantly as sales are slow in the local market," he said. Click here to receive free news bulletins via email from Caribbean360. (View sample)