CGA striving in challenging environment, says CEO

Long be­fore Trinidad and To­ba­go be­came an in­de­pen­dent na­tion, a group of co­conut farm­ers had al­ready joined forces to build a man­u­fac­tur­ing busi­ness that would even­tu­al­ly grow in­to one of the coun­try’s long­stand­ing pro­duc­ers of food, per­son­al care and house­hold prod­ucts.

As the coun­try marks its 64th year of In­de­pen­dence to­mor­row, CGA, for­mer­ly the Co­conut Grow­ers As­so­ci­a­tion, is look­ing back on al­most nine decades of evo­lu­tion, from crush­ing co­pra in­to co­conut oil to man­u­fac­tur­ing mar­garines, in­dus­tri­al fats, liq­uid short­en­ings, soaps and a grow­ing range of skin­care prod­ucts for the lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets.

CEO of CGA, Gabrielle Agos­ti­ni, speak­ing to the Sun­day Busi­ness Guardian last Fri­day, de­scribed a com­pa­ny that has changed sig­nif­i­cant­ly since its for­ma­tion in 1937, while re­main­ing root­ed in man­u­fac­tur­ing and in­creas­ing­ly fo­cused on ex­ports.