With World Steel­pan Day be­ing ob­served to­mor­row, Au­gust 11, the oc­ca­sion marks a glob­al cel­e­bra­tion of T&T’s icon­ic na­tion­al in­stru­ment—the steel­pan.

While its in­fec­tious rhythms and deep cul­tur­al roots re­main cen­tral to the fes­tiv­i­ties, the day al­so serves as a pow­er­ful re­minder of the steel­pan’s ex­pand­ing role as a glob­al com­mod­i­ty.

It shines a spot­light on the busi­ness po­ten­tial of pan, from in­ter­na­tion­al per­for­mances and ed­u­ca­tion to man­u­fac­tur­ing and ex­port, po­si­tion­ing T&T not just as the birth­place of the in­stru­ment, but as a leader in its glob­al evo­lu­tion

Com­pa­nies like the Mu­si­cal In­stru­ments of T& T Com­pa­ny Ltd (MITTCO), which was of­fi­cial­ly launched on Au­gust 11, 2022, co­in­cid­ing with the cel­e­bra­tion of World Steel­pan Day three years ago,is at the fore­front of this trans­for­ma­tion, show­cas­ing in­no­va­tions in pan man­u­fac­tur­ing, pro­mot­ing ex­ports and en­gag­ing in­ter­na­tion­al au­di­ences.

MITTCO, the brain­child of Akua Lei­th, has been po­si­tion­ing it­self as a key ex­port earn­er for this coun­try by tap­ping in­to in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets and ex­pand­ing its glob­al foot­print.

The Unit­ed States cur­rent­ly rep­re­sents MITTCO’s largest mar­ket amount­ing to about 40 per cent, but the com­pa­ny is ac­tive­ly pur­su­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties in Chi­na, Japan, and al­so the wider Caribbean, Lei­th, di­rec­tor of busi­ness de­vel­op­ment at MITTCO, told the Sun­day Busi­ness Guardian.

“We did send some pans to Aus­tralia and Spain. We have the UK buy­ing some pans. There’s in­ter­est there as well as Swe­den and some oth­er places and there con­tin­ues to be in­ter­est com­ing in.

“We al­so sold some pans in Ger­many so yes, there are ten­ta­cles there. Even in Chi­na, we have a con­ver­sa­tion with Chi­na right now. There’s some in­ter­est com­ing from Brazil and there’s some in­ter­est com­ing from Africa as well,” Lei­th out­lined, adding there is al­so in­ter­est from Japan as well.

The Ful­bright Fel­low who grad­u­at­ed from North­ern Illi­nois Uni­ver­si­ty with a Mas­ter’s of Mu­sic in con­duct­ing, with em­pha­sis on steel­pan per­for­mance, em­pha­sised that trade mis­sions are now more crit­i­cal than ever, es­pe­cial­ly in light of the Unit­ed States’ im­po­si­tion of a 15 per cent tar­iff on T&T’s ex­ports.

“This doesn’t pre­vent us from ex­port­ing to the US, but when con­sumers see an added cost due to the tar­iff, it can act as a de­ter­rent.

“Nonethe­less, there are oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ties be­yond the US mar­ket. While we (T&T) re­main rel­a­tive­ly sta­ble and con­tin­ue ne­go­ti­a­tions with the US Pres­i­dent Trump, we (MITTCO) are ac­tive­ly ex­plor­ing al­ter­na­tive mar­kets as well,” he said.

Lei­th al­so un­der­scored the im­por­tance of Gov­ern­ment in­volve­ment in dri­ving sales and sup­port­ing lo­cal en­ter­pris­es.

“Gov­ern­ment should fo­cus on em­pow­er­ing those al­ready op­er­at­ing in­sti­tu­tions on the ground, guid­ing them to­ward in­creased sales...

“The more sales, the bet­ter for any en­ti­ty, any com­pa­ny. So, you’re talk­ing about the Gov­ern­ment stream­lin­ing things along.We heard about In­dia want­i­ng pans. Let’s see how we can col­lab­o­rate with get­ting In­dia to pur­chase pans from man­u­fac­tur­ers on the ground, peo­ple like MITTCO and oth­er sup­pli­ers So, things like that for sure. We don’t want a hand­out. We just def­i­nite­ly want to be able to be pro­ject­ed as a vi­able sup­pli­er,” he ex­plained, main­tain­ing that the pri­or­i­ty should be stim­u­lat­ing ex­ist­ing busi­ness­es and help­ing them grow.

In shar­ing some sta­tis­tics Lei­th not­ed in 2022, MITTCO ex­port­ed just 45 steel­pans, but by 2023 that num­ber had surged to 216, and in 2024 it climbed fur­ther to 310.

He said pro­jec­tions for 2025 are es­ti­mat­ed to be be­tween 350 and 400 pans, re­flect­ing steady in­ter­na­tion­al de­mand and grow­ing recog­ni­tion of T&T’s crafts­man­ship.

While prices vary de­pend­ing on the type and fin­ish of the in­stru­ment, Lei­th not­ed that the tenor pan re­mains the most sought-af­ter in­stru­ment, com­mand­ing the high­est de­mand and the longest wait time.

This con­sis­tent in­ter­est in the tenor pan un­der­scores MITTCO’s role not on­ly as a cul­tur­al am­bas­sador but al­so as a ris­ing ex­port earn­er in the glob­al mu­si­cal in­stru­ment mar­ket.

“I mean in any man­u­fac­tur­ing space there is sup­ply and de­mand and be­cause of the amount of or­ders, the wait time is a bit longer than any oth­er pans,” Lei­th said.

A pow­der-coat­ed pan is $8,000 while a chrome pan is $11,600.

Last year, MITTCO sold 148 tenor pans, up from 117 in 2022—a sign of in­creas­ing glob­al de­mand.

So far in 2025, Lei­th said sales have al­ready ap­proached 100 units, with pro­jec­tions in­di­cat­ing that the to­tal could reach 200 by year’s end.

This up­ward trend un­der­scores the steel­pan’s grow­ing ap­peal and com­mer­cial vi­a­bil­i­ty on the in­ter­na­tion­al stage.

In shar­ing some of the chal­lenges, Lei­th said it would be ide­al if the drums could be sourced from a clos­er coun­try as MITTCO drums are cur­rent­ly im­port­ed from Japan.

With the com­pa­ny con­tin­u­ing to be a vi­able net forex earn­er Lei­th thanked the Hadad broth­ers-Robert, John and Joseph who are the founders of lo­cal dis­tri­b­u­tion gi­ant Had­co Ltd- for their un­wa­ver­ing sup­port as they con­tin­ue to see po­ten­tial in fledg­ling man­u­fac­tur­ing com­pa­ny and there­fore wor­thy of in­vest­ment.

Re­gard­ing for­eign ex­change chal­lenges, Lei­th ex­plained that MITTCO does not face this is­sue, as it is an earn­er of for­eign cur­ren­cy.

“On that end, we are quite good. That is where we see our po­si­tion. Our sense of stim­u­lat­ing the steel pan in­dus­try and to be able to bring in forex in­to the coun­try,” Lei­th added.

In shar­ing where MIT­TO sees it­self in the next five years Lei­th stressed it is about push­ing for­ward the busi­ness up­on and the pos­si­bil­i­ties that it could reach.

Apart from this through its fac­to­ry tours, it al­so hopes to en­cour­age youths in the busi­ness of pan and a ca­reer path.

“And that way, once you get en­ticed by it, then we of course see an in­dus­try grow­ing in the near fu­ture,” Lei­th added.

About MITTCO

Head­quar­tered in Diego Mar­tin, MITTCO was de­vel­oped with a vi­sion to be­come a lead­ing mu­si­cal in­stru­ment man­u­fac­tur­er. The first line of prod­ucts to mar­ket are steel­pans and ac­ces­sories that are craft­ed us­ing a com­bi­na­tion of tra­di­tion­al and in­no­v­a­tive man­u­fac­tur­ing process­es, its web­site stat­ed.

It not­ed MITTCO’s di­verse team of en­tre­pre­neurs, ex­pe­ri­enced pan tuners, pan mak­ers and mu­sic en­thu­si­asts are ded­i­cat­ed to build­ing an icon­ic brand that has at its heart a val­ue propo­si­tion of high qual­i­ty, re­li­a­bil­i­ty, ser­vice ex­cel­lence and ex­pert ar­ti­san­ship.