AFTER realising the value of his expertise and receiving positive feedback from customers, founder and Chief Executive Officer Kemar J Allen is looking to take Better Foods Distributors Limited on a larger platform for 2022.

The business, which distributes high-end meats, opened on December 2, 2020 with a focus on buying from local farmers to supply to hotels, restaurants, and attractions. The company distributes across the island with its central markets being in Kingston, Mandeville, Montego Bay, Portland, and Ocho Rios. Apart from himself, Allen’s wife is the chief operating officer, while his brother assists with the distribution segment.

“I’ve always been attracted to entrepreneurship, with stints in the events and environmental sector. In 2018 I relocated from Kingston to St Ann to work with this manufacturing and distribution centre. They brought me in to revamp the company, but when I got there, the owners weren’t open to any ideas and suggestions I had proposed. I was there trying for two years trying to make changes and nothing really happened,” Allen explained to the Jamaica Observer.

While acting manager, Allen discovered that the business he worked for had great potential but was not realising its full capacity. This resulted in him getting calls from customers seeking resolutions and ways to optimise inventory management to ensure things ran as needed. However, his experience at the time pushed him to look for another way to continue what he loved doing.

“Going into the last quarter of 2020 I started contemplating that I wouldn’t enter the new year with this company. I didn’t want to apply for another job, but I wanted to start my own company. In November, I came up with the name, got it registered, and reached out to an acquaintance who said he’d be my first customer,” Allen added.

Despite taking the brave route and starting his journey as an entrepreneur with a viable business opportunity, many close associates disagreed with the idea as the world navigated the novel coronavirus pandemic, which had effectively crippled tourism and left many entrepreneurs and businesses hanging on.

“When I started the business, everyone said I was a madman. How could I leave my decent job and take up entrepreneurship when the pandemic had just come? I have a vision. I bootstrapped with the market and just went for it,” Allen responded.

Following conversations with his close family members and saving to start his venture, Allen took the leap of faith after one month of operating Better Foods.

“I started with one item and one customer. The month was so good that I tripled my salary. I saw the opportunity and persons kept on asking me to sell products to them. A customer even said, ‘Mr Allen, why don’t you go start your own company. On January 4, 2021, I resigned and never looked back as it was only full force ahead. I’ve been profitable from day one and still profitable,” a beaming Allen expressed in his interview with Sunday Finance.

Better Foods currently distributes a wide range of premium cuts of pork and beef (tenderloin, striploin, ribeye etc), as well as seafood to serve his wide range of clientele. He also gets special cuts done and avoids other meats, like chicken, which require more storage space and typically see lower margins. The company currently sources more than 2,000 kilograms or 4,409 pounds of pork each week from local farmers.

Based on the growing demand from even his retail clients, Allen opened Better Foods Gourmet Food Store on 101B Main Street in Ocho Rios, St Ann, to serve clients with a wide array of meats and other selections like wines, spices, and food. This is driven by the belief in eating better and living better, alongside a commitment to grow the business into new segments. It also serves as a space for other Jamaican entrepreneurs to sell their assortments like honey, chocolate, and seeds.

With more than $30 million invested and no debt, Allen is looking at equity investments to grow the business further. He is currently looking to start manufacturing at the distribution centre in a small niche and test it before ramping up further. To this end, he’s joined the business incubator Rev Up Caribbean that is led by First Angels Jamaica and National Commercial Bank Jamaica Limited.

“Because of the experience I gained in manufacturing and inventory management, I know how to rotate my stock frequently in order to match supply with demand. We’re looking to expand our space as we have no additional space. I’m in a programme with Sandra Glasgow trying to structure and get some equity investment to expand,” Allen said about the company’s future.

Though he is always looking to satisfy the needs of his clients, he prefers to only take on orders the company can fulfil and not fall below the standard he’s established so far. With the company working from Monday to Friday to provide customers with meats, Allen believes that he’ll have greater success in 2022 as the country continues to open up and recover.

“On many occasions we have had to forego or partially fill orders from additional large companies that want to do business with us on a consistent basis. So the goals set out for this year is to increase our dry and cold storage space, increase our fleet of delivery vehicles, ramp up our marketing and have a larger footprint within the retail and rebounding hospitality sector,” Allen closed.

Better Foods can be found at betterfoodsja.com, on Instagram at betterfooddistributorsltd or better_foods_gourmet_store. The company can be contacted at 876-679-4719 or sales@betterfoodsja.com.