Radhika’s story: flavourful solutions to reduce food waste

Radhika Basdeo is the owner of Basdeo’s Dynasty in Georgetown, Guyana. She started her business to reduce waste and theft on her family’s farm and has since turned it into a thriving food brand. Our Road to Finance programme with ExxonMobil Foundation and ActionINVEST Caribbean Inc. supported her to boost her confidence and financial literacy so that she can strengthen and future proof her business.

“My name is Radhika Basdeo, and I am the sole proprietress of Basdeo’s Dynasty. Basdeo’s Dynasty is a reprocessing facility that manufactures and packages mango, pepper sauce, plantain flour, spices, salted fish, and other products. 

I never thought I would have gotten into reprocessing, until COVID hit. Many vendors and consumers stopped coming out to my family’s farm to buy produce, which led to a lot of spoilage, and since our workers weren’t coming out to harvest the crops, people began to steal from our fields. My dad said that we have to make use of these resources we have, so I took it upon myself from there to develop those resources into our products. I started off with mango and pepper sauce, and after developing those products, I ventured out into spices and salted fish, because it adds to my product line.

The main challenge I have faced as a female entrepreneur is being cast aside, being told that a woman is not supposed to do business or that I wanted to do too much with my business. Your male counterparts view you so differently, especially when they see that you are thriving and doing more than they can do.

Since starting my business, I’ve stepped into a phase of being an independent woman, which requires a lot of confidence and a lot of motivation.

The Road to Finance programme was a great initiative. It made me realize how little I know about financing in business, especially as a female owned business and a sole proprietress. The entire course has been great and I have implemented the learnings from it into my business. Now, I can proudly say that I have record keeping, cash flow management, and cash flow projections. 

The programme helped me to boost my financial literacy. I now understand how to approach banks or any other financial institute and what their requirements are, because it was a part of our group work to find out those details. That way, whenever we encounter any challenges and need finance, we know exactly where to go and what to do. 

Oftentimes when a woman gets involved in business, they are not taken seriously by these financial institutes, but with the help of the programme to give women that literacy that we need, we can boldly approach them and negotiate.  

The impact that this training has had for myself, my family, and my community is that I am more independent. I’ve been able to employ two persons within my neighbourhood and their lives have been great as well. 

My advice to women out there who would like to get into business is don’t wait until you have it all together. Start using whatever resources you have available to you and work it out  from there.”