Car­ol Quash

Re­pub­lic Day 2026 is tak­ing on a whole new mean­ing for staff and sup­pli­ers of Xtra Foods Ltd. Over 25,000 peo­ple have reg­is­tered for the com­pa­ny’s 5K on Sep­tem­ber 24, with pro­ceeds go­ing to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Can­cer So­ci­ety.

Xtra Foods CEO Austin Daniel said the su­per­mar­ket chain is al­ways look­ing for ways to con­tribute to na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment, and he be­lieves host­ing an event that sup­ports peo­ple’s health on Re­pub­lic Day is a good way to show pa­tri­o­tism.

“We have been try­ing to do a 5K for some time now, and we felt that it was nec­es­sary be­cause we want to have a health­i­er coun­try,” Austin told WE Life and Cul­ture.

“Yes, there is a food bas­ket, but food has to be mar­ried with ex­er­cise. Be­cause, you know, when we look at the sta­tis­tics, you see there are a lot of chron­ic dis­eases pop­ping up. And if we, as a food dis­trib­u­tor, could en­cour­age our stake­hold­ers to take care of their health, we will be do­ing our part to na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment and build­ing our Re­pub­lic.”

The race starts at 5 pm at St Mary’s Col­lege Ground in Port-of-Spain, and the route will take par­tic­i­pants around the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah. Par­tic­i­pants will have ac­cess to hy­dra­tion sta­tions, and those who reach the fin­ish line will be award­ed a par­tic­i­pa­tion medal. Austin said many of their sup­pli­ers will al­so be there with give­aways.

The de­ci­sion to do­nate to the Can­cer So­ci­ety, he ex­plained, was made be­cause it gives the com­pa­ny a greater reach in terms of spon­sor­ing a cause that af­fects nu­mer­ous peo­ple.

“You know, can­cer af­fects so many peo­ple in our com­mu­ni­ties. And sup­port­ing the Can­cer So­ci­ety is sup­port­ing so many of our na­tion­als.”

He be­lieves that the dis­ease is so preva­lent that it seems that every­one knows some­one who has been af­fect­ed by can­cer.

“It is among the top caus­es of ill­ness-re­lat­ed deaths in our coun­try.”

Austin ex­plained that while the com­pa­ny may be new to the 5K ini­tia­tive, there are sev­er­al na­tion-build­ing ac­tiv­i­ties that the Xtra Food staff have been in­volved in for years, among them beach clean-ups.

“Plan­et Earth is the place where all busi­ness com­merce takes place, and we all have to play our part in terms of mak­ing sure to take care of it.”

He said for the past ten-plus years the com­pa­ny has part­nered with the In­ter­na­tion­al Coastal Cleanup, with em­ploy­ees vol­un­teer­ing to help clean the beach­es.

“It’s part of our cor­po­rate so­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, ESG (en­vi­ron­men­tal, so­cial, gov­er­nance) and ESC (en­vi­ron­men­tal stew­ard­ship and cir­cu­la­to­ry stan­dards).”