NATIONAL Baking Company’s chairman and managing director Gary ”Butch” Hendrickson has reinforced his commitment to building the local manufacturing sector through the fifth staging of his trade show ‘A Jamaican Made Christmas’.

Speaking with the Jamaica Observer on the first of the two-day trade show held at the AC Hotel Kingston yesterday, Hendrickson explained that there is not enough manufacturing in Jamaica and the show serves as an avenue to bring exposure to local manufacturers with an end goal to drive economic growth.

“We need real manufacturing to kind of help it (country) grow. The manufacturing sector alone is not going to be the end all, but it can be a great driver of growth in economy, hence you give good jobs, steady jobs,” Hendrickson said.

He added that while he may not live to see the return on his investment in manufacturing, he has a duty to pass the baton to the next generation.

“If we can do what we did at National and get people to support something like this I don’t see why in the next 20 years somebody else can’t do the same thing. If you have four people, six people, seven people, then you get exponential growth. I don’t think I will see it in my lifetime but it has to come else we won’t survive as a nation. We have to look at our labour market, education, the level of education and what are we educating our students to do. What are we teaching them to do? The world requirements 30 years ago are totally different than what we face now. The requirements is STEM. In real terms a proper STEM education is the way to move forward.”

Dr Glen Christian, CEO and chairman of Cari-Med Limited and Kirk Distributors Limited, lauded Hendrickson’s event and shared similar sentiments, stating that STEM needs to be productive in order to drive gross domestic product (GDP) growth locally.

“This is where it’s at. It starts with getting people to be creative. We need STEM to be productive. We have to get real. Things like these I hope will stir the social conscience of other private sector leaders,” he said

Yesterday over 1,000 patrons filled the AC Hotel from 10:00 am, curious to examine and purchase goods from the 110 local exhibitors, selected from a pool of over 400 applicants. Patrons pay $1,200 to enter and children under 12 are free. With the $1,200 patrons receive two $500 -ouchers redeemable at any booth on the inside, as well as a reusable shopping tote.

Tiffany Wong, head of special projects at National shared that the budget for the event is currently set at $12 million. With approximately 70 per cent of the exhibitors being new to the trade show, her aim is to provide exposure and help them do well for Christmas.

“We have a passion for manufacturing, small businesses and helping people grow and we’d like to help them because we know that it can be a struggle for persons to find marketing and be able to participate in a show like this. A lot of them [applicants] are popular so we try to find the not-so popular persons to give them a chance to become the popular ones. We look at their distribution, their popularity, whether they are involved in a lot of pop-up shops. Maybe they can’t afford to be in a lot and so we give those people a chance,” Wong said.

Moreover, exhibitors expressed their gratitude for the opportunity to participate in the event and praised the initiative for its support for local manufacturers and small businesses.

“Apart from the commitment fee which is refunded, National has set up everything for us for free. As a small business you can’t really afford it and National does the marketing and everything. So as a small company it’s a really big opportunity for us,”said Ayesha Allen, CEO of Ara Foods.

“It’s a pleasure being at Jamaican Made Christmas. Shoppers have been gravitating to our goods and the idea around it as we aim to have people identify with it as the dolls look like us, the books look like us, so the colour and ethnicity and Jamaicaness in our craft give us that unique edge and shoppers are gravitating,” said Kerry-Ann Willis, marketer for The Craft People.

Further, the quality of the goods were lauded by patrons.

“The local vendors have stepped up since previous years in terms of the variety of offering and quality of stuff,” Lisa Williams said.

In addition, Renee Brown added that she was impressed with the variety of the offerings and hopes to see more creative items on display in years to come.

The event continues today and will close at 8:00 pm