by Marlon Madden
While the past two years have proven to be very difficult for businesses due to the COVID-19 pandemic, at least two of the island’s larger eateries have still been able to add to their operations. In fact, homegrown restaurant chain Chefette Restaurants Ltd, introduced its promised Frosteez ice cream in November last year and is already eyeing the regional market, while Burger King recently managed to open a new branch in Six Roads St Philip.
Back in February 2020, just before the COVID-19 pandemic started to affect the island, officials of Chefette Restaurants officially announced the construction of a multi-million-dollar, state-of-the-art ice cream manufacturing plant and a meat processing plant in Lears, St Michael.
At the time, Managing Director Ryan Haloute announced that the ice cream plant would produce over eight million litres of ice cream products annually.
The manufacturing of its own local brand, Frosteez, has brought to an end the decades-old contract between Chefette Restaurants and its ice cream supplier out of Trinidad and Tobago.
At the same time, the Frosteez brand is expected to provide some stiff competition to local ice cream maker BICO Ltd.
In fact, just two months after Frosteez ice cream was introduced at all 15 Chefette locations across the island as well as island-wide delivery, Chefette revealed at the end of January that the dairy product was available in communities from the Frosteez ice cream vans in a phased rollout, starting in St Phillip and St George and expanding across the island throughout the year.
The company has also quickly expanded its reach into several retailers, and officials have already set their sights on penetrating overseas markets with the Frosteez ice cream.
In a short response to questions from Today’s BUSINESS, Haloute would only indicate that he was very pleased with the response so far, and that there would be continued expansion.
“We are extremely pleased with the response from the public with our Frosteez ice cream and novelties launch and with our team’s performance,” he said.
“To date in the three months since we have launched Frosteez, we have introduced ice cream in one pint tubs, one litre tubs, 2 litre tubs, 2.5 gallon tubs and five lolly flavours in addition to our Frosteez vans which have started to go into neighbourhoods with our products as we further expand as this year progresses,” said the businessman.
He also indicated that the planned multi-million-dollar development plan for Newton, Christ Church, which is expected to be the company’s single largest investment project, was still on the cards but on pause for the time being as the company builds out the ice cream business.
“Our Newton project is on pause at the moment as we focus all of our efforts to ensure our new Frosteez ice cream brand excels in both the local and regional market,” he said.
The Newton location, which will be the 16th for the company, will consist of a multi-storey building to include a Chefette restaurant, drive-thru, an ice-cream parlour, BBQ Barn and a double mega three-storey playground on five acres of land.
Meanwhile, Burger King has opened a new outlet, this time in St Phillip, hiring several individuals. After the closure of its Trident House, City location in what was described as “a strategic move” close to three years ago, that fast food chain had opened a branch in Hastings at the Esso service station while boasting of new job creation.
Officials are currently in the process of adding a drive-thru to the J.B Simpson Complex, St Phillip location that opened late last month. Other Burger King locations are in Sky Mall, Warrens, Holetown, Bridge Street and Sheraton Centre.
[email protected]
Read our ePaper. Fast. Factual. Free.
Sign up and stay up to date with Barbados’ FREE latest news.
Source link
