CONTACT Magazine (Vol.18 No.3 – December 2018)

vertical integration by buying fruit
from local farmers and converting it
into frozen orange and grapefruit juice
concentrate for use throughout the
year.
The export team
Today, SM Jaleel’s Caribbean sales export
team is led by Clint Villafana, Vice
President of Export Sales (Caribbean and
Third Party). It includes Amir Hosein and
Aaron Logie. At an extra-regional level,
Brian Erdelyi (Chief Revenue Officer,
based in Canada) leads a team supported
by Suneeta Hosein and Michelle Grant.
The team is focused on the company’s
continued growth and market expansion.
In an interview, Clint Villafana
confirmed that working with his team
has been a very rewarding experience.
They were instrumental in the growth
of the department, and in the expansion
of the company’s footprint into more
new markets in recent years, such as
Ghana, Puerto Rico, Holland, Bonaire,
Belize, and Aruba. “They have been key
in the expansion of our existing SMJ
portfolio within existing markets, and
increasing overall market share for the
company’s brands.”
Part of SM Jaleel’s success is
surely due to the judicious selection
of export models and products,
based on careful market research. A
franchise agreement? A new affiliate
or subsidiary? Exclusive agreement
with an experienced distributor?
Outsourced production? The decision,
Villafana explained, depends partly on
the size of the country and its distance
from Trinidad, which will affect
shipping costs. “We perform a value
chain analysis to determine the best
approach.”
Local costs matter too. “Markets
have different duty structures,” Villafana
pointed out, “and as such can make
our products uncompetitive due to
price sensitivity. To address this in the
Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States
(OECS), many years ago we introduced
a production facility in St Lucia, which
allows us to benefit from a lower duty
structure since we are selling from a Less
Developed Country (LDC).”
Villafana continued: “Markets
have different regulatory requirements
in terms of labels and ingredients, so
in entering markets we have had to
work closely with our Research and
Development team to customise some
of our existing brands to meet these
requirements.”
SM Jaleel makes good use of the
Caricom free trade agreement, and is
now expanding into Costa Rica, where
Michelle Grant, Finance and Operations
Manager, SMJ Procurement and
Marketing, Inc
Brian Erdelyi, Chief Revenue Officer, SM
Jaleel
From left to right: Export Managers Aaron Logie and Amir Hosein; Suneeta Hosein, Manager, Centralised Planning Unit;
Clint Villafana, Vice President, Export (Caribbean and Third Party)
www.chamber.org.tt/contact-magazine 11
Trinidad and Tobago Chamber
of Industry and Commerce