Santo Domingo, RD.
With the idea of supplying the local market of tropical fruit juices of great acceptance, two young brothers, Dominicans, launched themselves in the market with the sale of juices made in an area of their home and joined another Creole also starting out in an artisan kitchen rented in the United States and today they are exporting to the United States where their products are marketed in supermarkets and department stores such as Walmart.
Chinola produced in the Dominican fields, guava, carambola, cherry, sour orange and Creole lemons, to which they also add cane juice, reach the shops and supermarkets with natural flavor, because since its inception, the three owners of today’s company Sucs Carib (Gosoba, located in the industrial free zone of Nigua, San Cristóbal), applies in its preparations HPP technology.
Anna Batlle, her brother Johann and her friend Lluís were the ones to start marketing fruit juices. In an area of the house they kept the fruit frozen, while his friend Lluís, from the United States, was the one who contributed the idea of the technology for the preservation of the already packaged product.
The start was in 2014, very small, and three years later they settled in the free zone of Nigua. Anna and her brother began buying the raw material, fruit pulp, which they froze in a home area that was the kind of factory, while Luis in the United States rented a shared kitchen where he hand-filled the containers with juice. by hand to those who applied HPP technology.
“We started with the concept of bringing all the Dominican fruits and flavors to the American market, this was our north. We wanted to do this because through research we realized that there are a lot of fruits and vegetables that are wasted. in our country because there is no market for them, ”he stated.
Remember that the life of fruits is short and if they do not have a quick exit they can be damaged and so they sought to add value to extend the shelf life and take advantage of foreign markets. In 2017 was when they were able to raise a capital and be located in the free zone of Nigua, prior to conducting market tests in the United States and without yet having the sales to support the investment they had made in the factory.
Like all entrepreneurs, they learned on the fly, with a vision for the future that will continue to develop and seek new opportunities in the United States and the country, but also the experience of maintaining production to supply one of the markets and to put is paused by the other by the impact of the pandemic.
Before the pandemic they were in every supermarket in the country and had here more than 150 independent outlets and were in the testing phase at Walmart and others in the USA.
Last year 2020 they started selling a private label and in September acquired another brand with over 10,000 outlets in U.S. supermarkets (WTRLMN WTR) that sold to Waltmart, Woole Foods, Target, Costco).
They bought this brand for the Covid-19 context, “and suddenly we find ourselves selling in almost every supermarket in the United States through this brand, which led to a total change of business.”
They don’t give a damn
Currently, they do not cover all the demand and only produce 60% of the demand of the US market, because they had no idea that they would reach such a sudden volume.
The next phase is to increase the production capacity in plant to use the demand in the country and get funding to expand the installed capacity, as well as share the process in two parts, always on the basis that the fruit is Dominican .
Today, from a group of three people with no business experience they have become a team of 180 people, including a new partner with experience in public and private companies with the flexibility of SMEs.
The brothers worked in private companies and his friend Luis was studying a specialty in the United States who saw an opportunity in the American market, without a business plan, or experiences, “in fact, we learned everything along the way.” .It is, said Anna, a process with advances and setbacks, not at all comfortable and very subject to decision making without having all the necessary information.
Carib Vita products is in the El Nacional supermarket, where it is promoted in this market, but they are also promoting it in Florida.
“Knowing we’ve achieved all of this is awesome, but it’s definitely not been easy at all and we’re still not at a stage that will be easy, but we definitely think it’s worth it,” Anna said.
The beginnings were with chinola, carambola, guava and cherry juices, and between 2015 and 2016 they added natural cane juice to provide vitamins and minerals, then sell fruit and vegetable juices. They are six products and will relaunch Caribbean Vita in Florida and the country, where there are several supermarkets waiting for this product line.
2015
The beginnings were with chinola, carambola, guava and cherry juices, and between 2015 and 2016 they added natural cane juice to provide vitamins and minerals, then sell fruit and vegetable juices.
In the super
Carib Vita products is in the El Nacional supermarket, where it is promoted in this market, and is also being promoted in Florida.
new flavor
Melon is widely accepted in the United States and they are already receiving about 20 tons of fruit each week at their St. Kitts plant, which helped make up for the lack of a market for Dominican growers.
others will use
In the short term, they are considering including other varieties of Creole fruits.