Shas­tri Boodan

Janet Sankar is mak­ing her mark in the world of pre­serves us­ing lo­cal fruit.

She made quite an im­pres­sion on the judges at the Prime Min­is­ter’s Best Vil­lage Tro­phy com­pe­ti­tion 2023.

Sankar, a res­i­dent of Cou­va, took first place for Best Pre­serves, which in­clud­ed pep­per sauce, kuchela, man­go jam, sor­rel jam and pineap­ple jam.

She said “I have been mak­ing pre­serves for over 20 years. I de­cid­ed to pack­age and la­bel my prod­ucts to make them more pre­sentable for the Best Vil­lage Com­pe­ti­tion. My prod­ucts were well re­ceived by all at­ten­dees and judges on June 11 at the Best Vil­lage Folk and Food Fair, in Ch­agua­nas. My la­bel is J’s Home­made Prod­ucts. Be­cause of this, the judges en­quired where these items were be­ing sold and they were im­pressed with the high stan­dard of pack­ag­ing and taste.”

Sankar, the hold­er of a Bach­e­lor of Ed­u­ca­tion de­gree from UWI, said she plans to put her prod­ucts on shelves as ear­ly as Au­gust 2023 “ I want to build a clien­tèle , then ex­plore the pos­si­bil­i­ty of ex­port­ing to re­gion­al mar­kets. How­ev­er, one of the set­backs is the cost of raw ma­te­ri­als. I have to pur­chase prod­ucts at re­tail prices, which means that the prof­it mar­gin will be low­er. How­ev­er, as sales in­crease, I may en­ter in­to an arrange­ment for whole­sale pur­chas­ing.”

Sankar said like every oth­er as­pir­ing en­tre­pre­neur, she wants to have a suc­cess­ful and prof­itable busi­ness. “I al­ready have ex­cel­lent prod­ucts.”