Fay­ola K J Fras­er

Build­ing a small busi­ness from the ground up has pro­vid­ed Nic­hole Ali-Rogers with am­ple op­por­tu­ni­ties to in­no­vate and adapt con­tin­u­ous­ly. Her for­ward-think­ing ap­proach en­sures that the busi­ness re­mains rel­e­vant in an ever-evolv­ing, com­pet­i­tive mar­ket.

Whether through in­tro­duc­ing new prod­ucts, im­prov­ing pro­duc­tion meth­ods, or ex­plor­ing sus­tain­able prac­tices, Ali-Rogers is com­mit­ted to the growth and evo­lu­tion of the fam­i­ly busi­ness for the ben­e­fit of her chil­dren.

Her vi­sion and ded­i­ca­tion are key dri­vers be­hind the on­go­ing suc­cess and ex­pan­sion of the dairy prod­ucts busi­ness. Af­ter pur­su­ing her stud­ies in the UK, she re­turned to Trinidad in 2007 and be­gan work­ing at the Agos­ti­ni Group. Dur­ing those post-ter­tiary years, she met her hus­band, Don­ny Rogers, and they grew their fam­i­ly with their two daugh­ters, now aged 13 and 15.

A ded­i­cat­ed pro­fes­sion­al who bal­ances mul­ti­ple de­mand­ing roles with im­pres­sive ef­fi­cien­cy, she is a full-time reg­u­la­to­ry of­fi­cer and takes that role se­ri­ous­ly, which of­ten re­quires her to work long be­yond reg­u­lar hours. In ad­di­tion to her reg­u­la­to­ry du­ties, Ali-Rogers chan­nels her en­tre­pre­neur­ial spir­it in­to their fam­i­ly busi­ness dur­ing her af­ter­noons and evenings.

This sec­ondary role in­volves a wide range of re­spon­si­bil­i­ties, from pro­duc­tion and pack­ag­ing to mar­ket­ing, sales, and de­liv­ery, each of these tasks be­ing vi­tal to en­sur­ing the suc­cess and sus­tain­abil­i­ty of the busi­ness.

Bal­anc­ing these two de­mand­ing roles is no small feat, but Ali-Rogers man­ages it with grace and de­ter­mi­na­tion. When asked how she can man­age it all, she laughs, “Well, some­times the laun­dry doesn’t get done. But when you want to pur­sue some­thing, you find the time. I have a pas­sion for our busi­ness, and I’m do­ing it for the ben­e­fit of our fam­i­ly.”

By seam­less­ly in­te­grat­ing her pro­fes­sion­al and en­tre­pre­neur­ial en­deav­ours, Ali-Rogers not on­ly ex­em­pli­fies re­silience and per­se­ver­ance but al­so serves as an in­spi­ra­tion to oth­ers striv­ing to bal­ance mul­ti­ple ca­reer and per­son­al as­pi­ra­tions.

See­ing a gap in the in­dus­try many years ago, Ali-Rogers and her hus­band de­cid­ed to make dairy prod­ucts from 100 per cent fresh cow’s milk, sourced from their free-range dairy farm. Their pop­u­lar flavoured da­hee is the first of its kind in Trinidad.

Their pop­u­lar da­hee is made with lo­cal­ly grown spices with no ad­di­tives, colour­ing, or preser­v­a­tives, and they have ex­pand­ed in­to var­i­ous oth­er tra­di­tion­al In­di­an prod­ucts.

Craft­ing this busi­ness from the ground up has al­lowed Ali-Rogers to in­no­vate, and she is con­tin­u­ous­ly seek­ing ways to evolve and adapt their fam­i­ly busi­ness.

Why da­hee? When Ali-Rogers’ hus­band re­turned from study­ing en­tre­pre­neur­ship in In­dia, they de­cid­ed to buy a farm. When they brain­stormed what they could do to add val­ue to the milk from the cows, they came up with the idea of mak­ing and sell­ing milk de­riv­a­tive prod­ucts.

Short­ly be­fore the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, they be­gan their busi­ness, learn­ing how to make da­hee, a pro­bi­ot­ic yo­gurt that was in­tro­duced in Trinidad by In­di­an in­den­tured labour­ers. Da­hee is made by fer­ment­ing milk with bac­te­r­i­al cul­tures, has a creamy tex­ture and a slight­ly tangy taste, and is tout­ed for its rich nu­tri­tion­al pro­file and var­i­ous health ben­e­fits, in­clud­ing di­ges­tive and in­testi­nal health prop­er­ties. Ac­cord­ing to Ali-Rogers, the biggest ad­van­tage of con­sum­ing da­hee is that one gets all the ben­e­fits of a lo­cal Greek yo­gurt at a more af­ford­able price.

Raised in a fam­i­ly that val­ued hard work, Ali-Rogers re­mem­bers be­ing in­volved in the food pro­duc­tion busi­ness from child­hood, as her grand­fa­ther had a co­coa and cof­fee es­tate.

“From a young age, we went to school and came home and danced the co­coa for my grand­fa­ther, and I al­so helped my grand­moth­er with cook­ing and work around the house,” she said.

She al­so re­mem­bers hav­ing her fair share of chores to do in her moth­er’s house­hold. Un­used to time idly spent, she re­calls these for­ma­tive mo­ments as foun­da­tion­al for her present abil­i­ty to work full time, man­age a small busi­ness, and be a moth­er and wife.

Aside from man­ag­ing the lo­gis­ti­cal el­e­ments of the busi­ness, she is al­so the com­pli­ance of­fi­cer and chief tester.

“As a reg­u­la­to­ry of­fi­cer with a sci­ence back­ground, I en­sure that our busi­ness prac­tices are sound and our prod­ucts main­tain their qual­i­ty and taste,” she said. She al­so brain­storms and tests new flavours and prod­ucts, such as their flavoured pa­neer, which is a first lo­cal­ly and is made, as are all their prod­ucts, with no added salt, sta­bilis­ers, sug­ars or chem­i­cal preser­v­a­tives.

For Ali-Rogers, the quick de­vel­op­ment and ex­pan­sion of their fam­i­ly busi­ness has been a con­fir­ma­tion that she is pur­su­ing her pas­sion and de­scribes it as very re­ward­ing. The great­est joy she ex­pe­ri­ences as a busi­ness own­er is the pos­i­tive re­ac­tions to their brand.

“It’s a chal­lenge to get peo­ple to try a new prod­uct and to sup­port lo­cal, and it’s re­al­ly frus­trat­ing when peo­ple try to beat you down on price,” she said. “But the best feel­ing is when they en­joy it, come back for more, and big su­per­mar­kets want to car­ry our prod­uct.”

This is her mo­ti­va­tion and en­cour­age­ment to keep de­vel­op­ing more prod­ucts, as she wants to make as many healthy and af­ford­able op­tions avail­able as pos­si­ble. Al­though they face the chal­lenge of hav­ing con­sis­tent ac­cess to raw ma­te­ri­als lo­cal­ly, she keeps her eye on trends as any good busi­ness own­er and is al­ways seek­ing new op­por­tu­ni­ties to ex­pand and in­no­vate.

Her ad­vice to oth­er women in­ter­est­ed in pur­su­ing their own en­tre­pre­neur­ial project is sim­ple, al­though it is a lot of hard work and very chal­leng­ing at times, “Make sure you’re en­joy­ing what you do, and it won’t be work at the end of the day.” When she spends her “down­time” work­ing on her busi­ness, she con­sid­ers it her time for her­self.

Al­so, in­cor­po­rat­ing her daugh­ters in­to every as­pect of the busi­ness has helped them grow in­to re­spon­si­ble and in­de­pen­dent girls of whom she feels very proud.

As their fam­i­ly busi­ness con­tin­ues to grow, Nic­hole Ali-Rogers shines as an ex­am­ple to women who hope to one day achieve the same.