PE­TER CHRISTO­PHER

pe­ter.christo­pher@guardian.co.t

De­spite see­ing long-stand­ing Tu­na­puna busi­ness Pat&Max Ltd move from its East­ern Main Road home to the Trinci­ty In­dus­tri­al Es­tate, busi­ness stake­hold­ers from the area are hail­ing the move as a suc­cess giv­en the cur­rent eco­nom­ic con­di­tions of the coun­try.

The print­ing com­pa­ny, which had been based in Tu­na­puna for more than 40 years, opt­ed to move its op­er­a­tions due to the ex­pan­sion of its busi­ness mod­el.

Fi­nance di­rec­tor of Pat&Max Mar­sha Sen­house-Good­ing ex­plained at a rib­bon cut­ting cer­e­mo­ny for the com­pa­ny's new lo­ca­tion yes­ter­day, " We out­grew our space where we were be­fore so we weren't able to have the pro­duc­tion and core op­er­a­tions in the busi­ness in the same space. Now we are able to bring it back un­der one roof. This way we can see and man­age bet­ter."

How­ev­er, giv­en the com­pa­ny's long con­nec­tion to Tu­na­puna, with its man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Melis­sa Sen­house pre­vi­ous­ly serv­ing as the pres­i­dent of the Greater Tu­na­puna Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce (GT­CIC), the com­pa­ny said it hoped to con­tin­ue to ser­vice that com­mu­ni­ty.

"We un­der­stand that this move is a sur­prise the most, and then af­ter all these those years at 110 East­ern Main Road, Tu­na­puna, we still be­lieve that we will be a part of the com­mu­ni­ty of Tu­na­puna. We have now grown in­to the com­mu­ni­ty of Trinci­ty," she said.

Neil Boodoos­ingh, pres­i­dent of the Tu­na­puna po­lice sta­tion Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil said the ex­pan­sion need­ed to be recog­nised giv­en the try­ing busi­ness en­vi­ron­ment cur­rent­ly be­ing seen in the coun­try.

"This busi­ness will con­tin­ue to grow. We are liv­ing in a so­ci­ety where it is very hard to do busi­ness, and when you have growth in busi­ness, it must be recog­nised," he said.

This view was echoed by pres­i­dent of the GT­CIC Ra­mon Gre­go­rio.

"It's a very tough place to do busi­ness, in Trinidad in 2026 as we all know peo­ple who own busi­ness, so mak­ing this move is not on­ly a leap of faith, but it's a tes­ta­ment of in­tel­li­gence, un­der­stand­ing that they have a strong brand, Pat N Max will pre­vail, " Gre­go­rio said, while stat­ing the com­pa­ny's re­silience had shown over the decades.

"This is just the be­gin­ning of a new gen­er­a­tion, a new fron­tier. Busi­ness will evolve, em­brace it for what it is. There will be short­com­ings, up­hills and down­hills as you know, be­ing in busi­ness over 40 years. More im­por­tant­ly, it is a jour­ney. What I have seen in the Sen­house fam­i­ly, both Mar­sha and Melis­sa and mom, is that tes­ta­ment to sur­vive and un­der­stand­ing strug­gle," Gre­go­rio said adding, "Be­cause we have come from a space where strug­gle is all that we know, but it's al­so what makes us thrive. So with­out fur­ther ado, I'd like to re­al­ly com­mend the Sen­house fam­i­ly for con­tin­u­ing to add in busi­ness land­scape. It's a tough econ­o­my now, as Neil said."

The com­pa­ny ini­tial­ly print­ed ID cards but has since ex­pand­ed to per­son­alised print­ing and pro­mo­tion­al prod­ucts in­clud­ing ban­ners, mugs and glass­es.