RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Royal Castle Ltd managing director Sandy Roopchand.

Kristian De Silva

Fifty years ago in the bustling city of Port-of-Spain, Marie Per­me­nter took a brave step in open­ing up the first Roy­al Cas­tle fast-food restau­rant on Fred­er­ick Street.

It was at the height of the na­tion­al­ist move­ment and al­though it was on­ly six years af­ter T&T achieved in­de­pen­dence, the de­sire to rise above the de­bil­i­tat­ing ef­fects of colo­nial­ism by build­ing lo­cal con­tent was high.

Per­me­nter’s restau­rant of­fered suc­cu­lent fried chick­en sourced lo­cal­ly us­ing lo­cal mari­nades, sauces and sea­son­ings.

With a mere staff of 12, the restau­rant thrived and be­came so pop­u­lar that with­in a few years Roy­al Cas­tle be­came the first lo­cal­ly owned restau­rant chain in T&T.

To­day, half a cen­tu­ry lat­er, and de­spite the eco­nom­ic in­sta­bil­i­ty, Roy­al Cas­tle is con­tin­u­ing to fly the flag of na­tion­al pride by sup­port­ing lo­cal farm­ers.

Speak­ing to the Guardian Me­dia on Tues­day, man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Sandy Roopc­hand said, “All our sup­pli­ers are lo­cal. We buy chick­en pro­duced on lo­cal farms as well as fresh gar­den pep­pers and sea­son­ings. Our lo­cal sup­pli­ers con­tribute to our suc­cess, as they un­der­stand our com­mit­ment to­wards qual­i­ty prod­ucts and our de­sire to use lo­cal in­gre­di­ents for our cus­tomers.”

As the first lo­cal­ly owned fast-food chain, Roopc­hand said cit­i­zens have de­vel­oped a spe­cial love for Roy­al Cas­tle and this loy­al­ty has kept the com­pa­ny afloat.

In re­turn, the com­pa­ny main­tains its phi­los­o­phy of us­ing home-grown prod­ucts.

“We pride our­selves in be­ing able to sup­port our lo­cal econ­o­my by sourc­ing ap­prox­i­mate­ly 95 per cent of our prod­ucts lo­cal­ly. We have built re­la­tion­ships with nu­mer­ous farm­ers, chick­en pro­duc­ers and oth­er lo­cal bod­ies for a sup­ply of qual­i­ty prod­ucts for our op­er­a­tion,” she ex­plained.

With pride etched on her face Roopc­hand said since 2008, de­spite falling en­er­gy prices, in­ad­e­quate for­eign ex­change and ris­ing cost of liv­ing, Roy­al Cas­tle has been able to suc­cess­ful­ly ride the waves of eco­nom­ic tur­moil and ex­pand from 12 to 37 restau­rants across Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Much of the com­pa­ny’s suc­cess took place un­der Roopc­hand’s stew­ard­ship.

Apart from sup­port­ing lo­cal sup­pli­ers, es­pe­cial­ly in terms of farm pro­duce, Roopc­hand said they have part­nered with pop­u­lar in­ter­na­tion­al sell­ers such as Nu­t­ri­na, Fine Choice, Kiss, Cavendish Farms and Co­ca-Co­la.

The staff at Royal Castle Ltd, Penal branch.

Kristian De Silva

So what else is the key to the com­pa­ny’s suc­cess?

Roopc­hand says keep­ing a hap­py and pro­duc­tive work­force is ex­treme­ly im­por­tant.

“I strong­ly be­lieve that an or­gan­i­sa­tion’s re­la­tion­ship with its staff must be mu­tu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial. I al­so hold my­self ac­count­able to my staff as I build trust, earn­ing their re­spect whilst be­ing au­then­tic and aware of what’s hap­pen­ing at the var­i­ous lev­els,” she ex­plained.

Hav­ing moved up from a man­age­r­i­al po­si­tion in the fi­nance de­part­ment to man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of the chain, Roopc­hand said she al­so un­der­stood the needs of their cus­tomers. As such, keep­ing prices down is an im­por­tant goal and Roopc­hand re­vealed Roy­al Cas­tle’s meals are priced sig­nif­i­cant­ly low­er than their com­peti­tors.

At the food chain’s lat­est restau­rant open­ing along the Pe­nal Main Road on Tues­day, cus­tomers were giv­en free meals, vouch­ers and gifts to cel­e­brate its ar­rival in the com­mu­ni­ty.

Roopc­hand said in keep­ing with her de­sire to have ex­cep­tion­al prod­uct stan­dards, her work­force need­ed to be steady so with­in a few years staff num­bers in­creased from 300-plus to 520.

She said they were now look­ing to open an­oth­er restau­rant in El So­cor­ro, San Juan, so this meant an ad­di­tion­al 40 new re­cruits.

“We aim to have at least 20 work­ers at each new restau­rant,” she said.

Join­ing the Roy­al Cas­tle fam­i­ly is easy, she added, as the com­pa­ny on­ly re­quires prospec­tive em­ploy­ees to have a love for peo­ple and a com­mit­ted work eth­ic.

“We have in­vest­ed heav­i­ly in the train­ing and well-be­ing of our work­ers, from floor work­ers to those in man­age­r­i­al po­si­tions,” she ex­plained.

“We con­tin­ue to recog­nise and re­ward our em­ploy­ees - they are our great­est as­set. I un­der­stand my re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for build­ing and main­tain­ing con­di­tions that make ser­vice ex­cel­lence pos­si­ble and worth­while. Know­ing that is a cul­ture change and one that will cre­ate long-term suc­cess. ”

Apart from plac­ing heavy em­pha­sis on in­ter­nal pro­mo­tion and recog­nis­ing the po­ten­tial of em­ploy­ees, Roopc­hand said she is al­so care­ful to en­cour­age work­ers to ful­fil their true po­ten­tial.

“We try not to put a cap on how far their am­bi­tion and ded­i­ca­tion can take them. With­out such an in­vest­ment in our em­ploy­ees, we un­der­stand that we would not be able to up­hold our val­ue propo­si­tion, nor en­sure that our cus­tomers re­ceive a good ser­vice ex­pe­ri­ence,” she said.

Roopc­hand al­so re­vealed that Roy­al Cas­tle’s aim is to ex­pand fur­ther out­side T&T.

She said there are al­ready six Roy­al Cas­tle restau­rants in Guyana but she was hop­ing that with­in the next few years there will be out­lets fur­ther up the Caribbean is­land chain.

She al­so re­vealed that as con­sumers’ tastes changed with time, the com­pa­ny’s menu se­lec­tion has al­so changed to re­flect health­i­er choic­es.

From the sim­ple meal of chick­en and fries, Roy­al Cas­tle to­day of­fers a wide va­ri­ety of items, in­clud­ing chick­en, fish, sand­wich­es, veg­etable burg­ers, sal­ads, ro­tis­serie chick­en and a wide se­lec­tion of bev­er­ages.

All of the restau­rants al­so now sport mod­ern in-store decors while some restau­rants are equipped with “dri­ve-thru” ser­vices as well as home and of­fice de­liv­er­ies, Roopc­hand ex­plained.

Go­ing for­ward, she said up­hold­ing Caribbean cul­ture and en­cour­ag­ing sup­port for lo­cal goods will re­main the hall­mark of T&T’s first lo­cal­ly owned and run fast-food brand.

“Our cul­ture and our taste are rep­re­sent­ed in our brand. Our se­lec­tion of qual­i­ty in­gre­di­ents, com­bined with our well-trained, mul­ti-racial, cul­tured staff make our cus­tomers’ ex­pe­ri­ence a unique, tasty and un­for­get­table one and this will re­main as we ex­pand,” Roopc­hand said.

Say­ing she was priv­i­leged to lead such a dy­nam­ic busi­ness with a sup­port­ive, di­verse staff, Roopc­hand vowed that the com­pa­ny will con­tin­ue to hold fast to tra­di­tion.

“We will con­tin­ue to up­hold our slo­gan “Our Cul­ture, Our Taste” be­cause we hold our cul­ture and di­ver­si­ty in high re­gard. We will con­tin­ue to be lo­cal-mind­ed and even as we ex­pand to dis­tant shores we will not for­get where we start­ed,” she added.

She urged cit­i­zens to sup­port lo­cal by buy­ing Roy­al Cas­tle, adding that an en­tire net­work of lo­cal pro­duc­ers, work­ers and sup­pli­ers ben­e­fit from the com­pa­ny’s suc­cess.