STEPHEN LEWIS

 

A TALE OF HERBAL HIGHS AND LOWS

 

By Juhel Browne

Business Guardian

July 27, 2000

Page 1

 

Like the rolling hills which surround his home and business locale, the life of Stephen Lewis, has been a journey of highs and lows in the business world.  His is also a story which shows how much small business depends on big business for survival.

 

Nearly four years after winning the Small Business Development Company's (SBDC) Best Business Award in the Agriculture Category in 1996, Lewis is fighting an uphill battle to restore his enterprise.

 

Lewis is the managing director of Stephen's Culinary Herbs which produces and distributes his own line of food seasonings.  They include mixed seasonings, basil and Spanish thyme among others.  He claims he once had 40 clients buying products.  He now has less than half of this clientele.  Lewis insists the big business he depended on, Carib Glassworks Ltd, abandoned him at the height of his success.  Carib Glass denies that it ever deliberately caused Lewis' business to suffer.

 

But Lewis, 26, stated he was accustomed to disappointments and setbacks and decided to tell the tale of the events which led him into the business world and his existing financial woes.

 

Lewis began Stephen's Culinary in 1995 although he had not planned to be an entrepreneur.  "Throughout my secondary school education I pursued art and technical drawing," he recalled.  "To me business had a bad stigma.  My family said you had to be double dealing to be successful."

 

In 1991, Lewis gained employment at the Hi-Lo Food Stores Maraval branch as a "packer" and eventually became a cashier.  After obtaining CXC passes in Art, Technical Drawing and Mathematics Lewis, who attended St James Secondary School, expected to fulfill his dreams as an artist or a draftsman.  However he soon learned that his dreams would not come cheap.

 

"The cost of pursuing either career was expensive," Lewis said.  "None of them I could afford to do."  Lewis continued working at Hi-Lo while he tried to figure out what he would do with his future.

 

During this period Lewis remembered his aunt ground food seasonings in bottles for use in the family kitchen.  "People would say - 'Why she don't work on putting it on the market?'" Lewis said.

 

It was not long before he developed on the idea and began to market the product.  "I had no idea about marketing or selling anything," Lewis stated.  "I dressed up in my shirt and tie and went to every hotel and restaurant in the areas of Port of Spain and Maraval."

 

Lewis noted all the chefs, and managers were impressed with his aunt's seasoning but found it was not suitable for all the dishes on their menus.  They suggested the creation of separate seasonings to be used in different recipes.  Lewis took note and soon created his own line of basil, Spanish thyme and mixed seasonings.  Lewis recorded his experiences in a business profile.

 

"When I started this business I did not have much money nor did I have the experience or training in business," e wrote.  He reinvested the money he made to purchase a scale, a food dehydrator for experimenting with herbs and a hand mill to grind the dry herbs.  In the process, Lewis said he used all his savings.

 

A visit to the SBDC's officers on Charlotte Street, Port of Spain in 1995 would prove to be his financial and entrepreneurial salvation.  The SBDC guarantees loans to small business like Stephen's Culinary once the applicant satisfies the necessary requirements.  Lewis satisfied those requirements and successfully secured a $6,000 loan from Royal Bank with a SBDC guarantee in 1995.

 

"Two thousand was used to buy units from the Unit Trust Corporation to make collateral, $1,000 was left but it could not buy all that was needed.  Taking the $3,000 and adding to my share in the Canning's Employee's Credit Union allowed me to borrow a total of $8,000," Lewis recollected.

 

He also took advantage of the SBDC facilities and took courses in cash management, costing and pricing and record keeping.

 

Armed with the resources necessary for marketing his products on a larger scale, Lewis gained two clients: Hi-Lo's Maraval and St Ann's branches.  When asked if it felt strange packing his products in the very place he was still working in at the time, Lewis said no.  In fact, he used the experience to conduct his own marketing survey.

 

"I gave it out to all types of people to try out on all types of recipes," Lewis said.  The reactions were both positive and negative and Lewis used the advice he received to improve his product.

 

In 1995, Stephen's Culinary claimed net sales of $2,768.  Within the next year, Lewis' products were being sold in 40 grocery outlets around the country including Hi-Lo, Tru Valu, LB's supermarket and the Marabella Meat Shop among others.  He had no vehicle so he delivered his seasonings to his clients by using public transportation to reach his destinations.

 

In 1996, a year after Lewis began his business, his company claimed net sales of $19,886 and received the SBDC award.  The future seemed bright for Lewis and his company.  He expected the business to continue to grow.  His mother father and another family member became involved in the business.  His regular supplier of the bottles which he needed to sell his seasonings, Carib Glass, was a reliable trader.

 

The bottles he used to market his product were called spice jars and are typical of the type used by such brands as Chief Brands to market their seasonings.  Lewis said he usually bought 100 cases which each comprised of 24 bottles, at a cost of $1 per bottle.

 

This business relationship, however, would end in 1997 and Lewis said he is yet to receive a proper explanation for what occurred.  In the late half of 1997 Carib Glass stopped manufacturing the spice bottles.

 

Requesting anonymity, a Carib Glass official interviewed Tuesday explained why the company decided to stop making spice jars.  "The total annual demand for that bottle was very small," the official said.  "The clients were informed in advance we would be discontinuing the production of the bottle.  We gave them the concession of importing the bottle duty free."

 

Lewis refuted, "I received no official word from any executive from the company or no document stating they were stopping and no alternative service was given."

 

The Carib Glass official, who was involved in the company's spice jar client outreach and assistance programme, had no recollection of Lewis ever filing an official complaint on the matter.  The official also insisted Lewis never approached crib Glass for a letter of duty free concession.

 

Lewis admitted he never wrote an official complaint but said he contacted another Carib Glass official who had dealt with him since the inception of his business.

 

He said that official showed him other bottles which he might use for his business.  Thos bottles, he noted, were jam and jelly bottles and were unsuitable for his needs.

 

Lewis asserted it took him six months before he found an alternative spice jar supplier since the nearest spice jar manufacturers were in Jamaica and Venezuela.  In the process, Lewis, shut down his business.

 

The Carib Glass official countered that there were several importers and people who stocked spice jars operating in Trinidad at that time.  The official also said the company would have assisted Lewis if he had officially contacted them about his predicament.

 

Although Carib Glass no longer produces spice jars, the official remarked the company is not in the business of hurting small businesses.

 

"We have made and continue to carry very large stocks of bottles for the cottage industries," the official said.  "We support the Mister Lewises of this world…because the small manufacturers of today are the big manufacturers of tomorrow."

 

Lewis claimed within the six-month period between Carib Glass' cessation of the production of its spice jars in late 1997 to sometime in early 1998 he lost at least half his clientele.

 

Moreover, Lewis estimated that based on the sales made in 1996 and the projections for 1997 his business lost at least $16,800 in earnings during that six-month period.  In 1997, Stephen's Culinary claimed net sales of $25,687.  Selling to half his clientele, last year Lewis estimates the company made net sales of $30,869.  He said while the figures may indicate high profits the money earned has gone into the repayment of the debts he incurred during the shut down period.

 

The Carib Glass official interviewed by the Guardian declared the company was not responsible for any of the losses Lewis incurred.  The official insisted there were many options available to Lewis which would have allowed his business to continue after Carib Glass discontinued its spice jar production.

 

In 1998, Lewis found a new spice jar supplier: RSH Marketing Ltd.  He said he now pays $1,800 for a case of 850 spice jars and buys about two at a time and had to redesign the bottle labels at a cost of $3,500.  Lewis also bought his own product bar code from the Universal Code Council in the United States at a cost of US $435 and explained this will allow him to sell his seasonings in any supermarket in the world.

 

During 1998, Lewis also left Hi-Lo in February to work for Handy Equipment.  He left Handy Equipment in September and became a sales representative at The Guardian Life of the Caribbean ltd insurance company in October.  Lewis still holds that position at Guardian Life today.

 

As for Stephen's Culinary, Lewis believes the business can again reach the plateau of success it once had but does not see this occurring in the near future.  "We just got back Hi-Lo," he said.

 

He has handed over more control of the day-to-day affairs of the business to his the family members who were involved in the business since 1995.  Lewis is focusing on his insurance career for now but insists he will not give up on the business he started five years ago.  And just as the Carib Glass official said, Lewis also wants Stephen's Culinary to become a big business just as Carib Glass has become.

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