Barbadian supermarket operators must give greater prominence to local products in their displays.
Minister of Industry, International Business, Commerce and Small Business, Donville Inniss, made this appeal yesterday, noting that there was “a strong linkage between the ownership of some of these facilities and where the goods that are more prominently displayed are coming from”.
He questioned why “a local product that is of good quality, competitively priced . . . [should] be buried at the back of a supermarket shelf”.
Stressing that he did not support banning imports nor “using a big stick to force people to buy local”, Inniss urged Barbadians to “execute their moral duty and support local agriculture”. The tendency to think whatever was foreign was good must change, he added.
“I am not one to say let us ban importation to support an industry. That is the wrong approach which can breed a level of inefficiency and low productivity and would stifle a lot in the society. I am not in favour of using a big stick to force people to buy local.”
But he urged Barbadians to have a sense of pride in the country “that tells us that things that are Barbadian must be given the necessary level of prominence”.
