by JULIE WILSON

BARBADIANS who love slurping on BICO ice cream will not have to pay more for their favourite dessert treat just yet.

This promise comes from BICO's chief executive officer Edwin Thirlwell in the wake of the rising cost of raw materials which the company has been grappling with since the end of last year.

He told a Press conference at the Cricket Legends of Barbados at Herbert House, Fontabelle, St Michael, on Thursday, that BICO would do its utmost to increase efficiency and contain costs in order to maintain current selling prices to its loyal customers in Barbados and in the export market.

Thirlwell said that despite escalating raw material costs, the company still managed a 12 per cent increase in its sales for the first quarter for the year.

"So the challenge for us is not sales and market penetration, it's escalating raw material costs.

"Fortunately, we are not alone in this; it's worldwide and we are determined to do our best to contain production costs, and we all know that one of the ways to contain production costs is to sell more."

BICO will be meeting with its advertising agency on future promotions.

Thirlwell reasoned that if ice cream costs went up, consumption would drop.

He added that though the company was fighting against the odds to keep costs down, he could not guarantee that the high costs would not be passed on to the customer eventually.