consumers now have alternatives to unhealthy junk foods.

They are especially designed for people who need easy to prepare meals when they come home from work.

Feel like having local soup, but no time to source, peel and prepare provisions?

Check out the Flavour Islands brand Provision Pack—a ready-to-cook blend of pre-cut, frozen cassava, dasheen, sweet potato, eddoes and plantain.

Maybe a sweet potato pie?

Just take a pack of frozen, beta-carotene-rich sweet potatoes and in short order your family has a pie on the table.

Then you can try nutritious cassava crinkle fries instead of oil-absorbing white potato fries.

Or maybe bake cassava or banana bread from a mix of 30 per cent cassava or plantain flakes and 70 per cent wheat flour.

These products, and many more currently sold at several supermarket chains across the country, are processed at three state-of-the-art agro-processing plants owned and operated by the Trinidad and Tobago Agri-business Association (TTABA).

Established in 2006, the TTABA is being funded by government during its first five years of its operations.

It is jointly operated by the government and 33 farmers' organisations.

The company buys its feedstock mostly from contracted farmers, although other farmers also supply the company with raw produce.

These are processed at one of three plants, the main one located at the e TecK compound on the Point Lisas Estate. Another is located at Caroni Village.

This plant produces fresh, bottled coconut water and ketchup and sauces from fruits like paw paw. The third, which includes a greenhouse, a nursery/seedling facility (catering for planting material for cassava, plantains, sweet potatoes and pommecythere) as well as a research station, is located in Carapo.

TTABA has 50,000 sq ft of factory and warehouse facilities comprising of three processing plants, the biggest at the Point Lisas Industrial Estate established for the processing of frozen root crops, pre-cut fruits and vegetables and dried staples and herbs.

TTABA also has a 20,000 sq ft ware house at Freeport, ten minutes from the processing plant.

The organisation is led by a 13-member Board chaired by Winston Borel. Its other members come from government, government agencies, and private sector and farmers' organisations. It employs 24 professionals, eight technical and administrative persons and some 75 workers.

"TTABA has been charged by the government with the responsibility of developing and implementing the National Agri-business Development Programme (NADP) which is intended to be a major mechanism for transforming the sector from agriculture to agri-business," said Vassel Stewart, the company's CEO.

At Point Lisas, where Venezuelan Manuel Padron is manager and Mahendra Ramdular the maintenance technician who oversees operations, Business Express saw farmers deliver produce like cassava, sweet potatoes, dasheen bush and spinach. The cassava (and other root crops like eddoes, dasheen) first enters a washing and peeling machine. Using a combination of swirling water and high-speed jet-sprays, the machine extracts all the dirt and most of the peel from the tubers.

The semi-peeled produce is then manually scraped clean of extraneous matter by a crew of female workers. From there the produce is fed into an Urshel Diversicut machine, which outputs a variety of "cuts". These are re-washed to ensure high sanitary standards. The end-products are then graded before being packaged and frozen.

From the tubers (cassava, sweet potatoes, dasheen) the company produces a range of consumer-ready products. These include small cubes (used in the Schools Nutrition Programme), and for retail at supermarkets big cubes, fries, wedges, logs and raw-grated cassava. The latter, as well as puree from plantain, is currently absorbed by several bakeries that use it for making nutritious cassava and banana bread, pone, sweet breads.

The plant at Point Lisas, which Stewart said would be soon expanded to enhance its output, also makes the Provision Pack (a blend of ground provisions), while beet root and pumpkin puree are bought by several ice cream manufacturers.

The Urschel cutter has a capacity of 1,500kgs per hour, or 12,000kgs per day.

Manager Padron, who operated a similar plant in Venezuela, said there was immense potential for expansion of these lines of products in Trinidad and Tobago. "They are a healthy alternative to most other sources of carbohydrates, widely consumed in Latin America," he added. "There is even a ready market in Europe for these nutritious products, but we first have to be able to supply the local market."

The plant also has a leafy vegetable line.

Here, spinach, pacthoi and dasheen are bought from farmers, thoroughly washed and packaged. These chopped, ready-to-cook products are supplied mainly to institutions like hospitals as well as retail outlets.

In its limited space, the plant has, too, equipment to crush fruits like pommecythere to make pulp, which is sold by the bucket or in barrels.

The pulp is converted into a delicious juice that is marketed by selected restaurants and hotels.

The after-product is bought by manufacturers of the popular condiment, kuchela. It also runs a salad line that meets the highest standards, Ramdular told the Business Express.

Another facet of the Point Lisas operations is that nothing goes to waste. "From the tubers' peel and ends to extraneous matter from the vegetables and other crops processed, the waste is sent to our Carapo operations where it is reduced to compost," Ramdular said.

Stewart, whose management team is currently apprising Food Production Minister Vasant Bharath on TTABA's operations and potential, said in the light of rising food prices, there is even greater urgency for stimulating the downstream side of local food production.

"In the past, we have relied heavily on farmers growing and marketing raw produce," he said. "There are a few private sector manufacturers, some of whom import feedstock like tomato paste. TTABA has an innovative approach, starting with local farmers as the suppliers. This stimulates diversified production by many displaced sugar cane farmers, as well as others."

He said farmers now have a ready, guaranteed market for their produce, the absence of which has been a long-standing hindrance to increased production of local foods. "Once we get continued support from government and farmers, TTABA can make a difference in the local food chain. That will not happen overnight. But we have come a long way since we got our processing plants operational last year."