BSI Rolls Out Packaged Sugar to Belize Market

It’s a quiet change but one that could reshape how Belizeans sweeten their coffee and tea at home. For the first time, Belize Sugar Industries is selling packaged sugar right here on the local market. Wholesalers received the first shipment yesterday, introducing the Domino brand alongside the traditional tied bags many families rely on. The packaged sugar comes at a higher price, but BSI says it offers a more refined and safer option which will be harder to smuggle across the border. So, what does this mean for consumers and for the traditional sugar trade? We spoke with BSI’s Financial Manager Shawn Chavarria.

 

Shawn Chavarria, Director of Finance, BSI

“How we’ve traditionally sold sugar here in Belize is we sell it in industrial size packaging, usually fifty or a hundred pound bags. From there it is then distributed to supermarkets and retailers who would then pre-package it normally in just clear plastic bags, they would use a Sharpie pen, put the pound and the price on that. But we feel that we should really be selling a much higher quality product that meets high quality food standards. But the law had to be amended to allow us the opportunity to do that. And so that law change occurred earlier this month. Because of that, we’re now able to sell this product which is packaged brown sugar and packaged retail package white sugar for the domestic market. From our end, we are more or less selling the sugar at about fifteen cents more per pound at the mill. But what the landed price ends up being on the supermarket would depend on what the distributor and the retailers charge for that. The price adjustments have been made to have Belizean prices more reflective of market prices. And therefore that incentive that used to exists we think will start falling away. Also because its package it’s much more difficult to smuggle and actually sell in some of these markets. So we see that as a reduced risk. And we don’t anticipate that we will have those challenges like we’ve had before.”