Small business enterprise: Plantain chip venture sustaining one family’s livelihood
DPI, Guyana, Thursday, June 28, 2018
Eighteen years ago, one family’s main income began with pushing a cart and selling local plantain chips in the streets of Georgetown.
Couple Gordon and Debra Moore created their D&G Delicious Chips business as a means of sustaining their family’s livelihood. The Moores explained, the business which began in 2000 with four persons, today employs seven.
Gordon said that among the challenges faced in the initial phase of his small business venture, traversing the streets on a daily basis was the most challenging. This was as a result of a medical condition with his feet, he explained. Today, Gordon boasts of the business’ bus he purchased after carefully saving over the years.
A fixture at the Bourda Market, Regent Street location for the past ten years, D&G Delicious Chips offers a variety of snacks including plantain chips, cassava chips, fried channa and nuts and chicken foot. With sales numbering over 1,000 packs a week, the Moores said they are planning to establish their own permanent business outlet and enhance the packaging and branding for the products.
“When there are major holidays, the sales pick up; sales are still good when it’s not, but not how it is when people come in and go back [overseas], like Mash and Christmas time,” Gordon noted.
New to the family business, daughter Donneil Moore said she has been working fulltime for the past three years and loves the experience.
Regular customers Aaliyah Pompey and Brian Fox have been supporting the business, for decades.
Pompey said, “this is a good business, persons can be passing by and you feel like having a snack, you can get it. She [Debra] is always out here. Since my young days, I have been buying from her.”
“I buy a lot and send away to my family; I particularly enjoy the channa and coconut biscuits,” Fox shared.
With the business showing such potential, the Moore family see further expansion of D&G Delicious Chips as key to maintaining their legacy in the local chip business.
By: Crystal Stoll.