Tamarind Season Isn’t a Bad Thing!

In Jamaican parlance, ‘tamarind season’ has negative implications for business owners. It signifies a time when retail sales decline and nobody is a buying mood. As an entrepreneur, you definitely don’t want to experience this kind of season for too long!

Well, merchants in other countries may disagree with our take on tamarind season. It seems that food exporters in Asian countries such as Thailand and India are cleaning up with tamarind products.

Just when I thought I could no longer be shocked by the wide range of unusual products that we import into the country, I discovered that I was wrong.

I recently did a double take in a major supermarket when I saw some attractively- designed boxes of Sweet Tamarind neatly placed in the fruit aisle, just on top of the more commonplace American apple display.

Whole tamarinds packaged in a box?
Imported from Thailand?
On sale here in Jamaica?
You have to be kidding me!
And for what price?
J$935 (Plus G.C.T.)
for a 450g box of jumbo-sized sweet tamarinds!!! 

Wow! This new product took my breath away. As I pointed it out to a nearby shopper, she started complaining that too much of our foreign exchange was being used to bring unnecessary items into the country.

While that may be true, I was more excited by the possibilities for our local entrepreneurs. Yes, we have many die-hard fans of our tamarind balls, but whole tamarinds in a box was another thing altogether.

I did a little research on the product on Alibaba.com (any product that exists for sale can probably be found on this site). It seems that there are dozens of companies that package whole tamarinds for export.

Any enterprising entrepreneurs want to take on this sweet and sour tamarind challenge?

Keep your entrepreneurial dreams alive!

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Have stuff to share? Email me at:
cherryl@financiallyfreenetwork.com