An Expo at Saint John’s College
There was no lack of creativity and innovation at the annual Saint John’s College Junior College expo. Every year, the students get the opportunity to test and expose products and services. This year, there was a wide range of items, from sweets to jewellery and a product that opens up opportunities to put sargassum to use in your home. News Five’s Duane Moody reports.
Duane Moody, Reporting
The Saint John’s College Gymnasium in Belize City was transformed into a marketplace today as the annual S.J.C.J.C. exposition got underway. Marketing students from the tertiary level institution participated and showcased innovative and unique ideas which were advertised to hundreds of students who attended the expo. It also counts as their final exam for the course and so they had to impress the judges who were looking to see if their products or services fulfilled the criteria.
Jose Carballo
Jose Carballo, Business Lecturer, SJCJC
“We are judging based on four main criteria and they are broken down based on level of importance. So the first one is the best market driven strategy so we are looking at their entire marketing plan. Apart from that, we have the product innovation; how innovative, how new of the idea is it. We have best entrepreneurship skills and we also have product viability in terms of how well would it be in a real market.”
And there was no shortage of innovative ideas. While some booths appealed to the providing services, a majority focused on products—jewellery, smoothies, scrubs and even desserts. Holy Shakes gave attendees a one-of-a-kind experience as you sipped away on a milkshake with all environmentally friendly products.
Tristan Coleman
Tristan Coleman, Rep., Holy Shakes
“We wanted to raise the standards for the milkshake market in Belize and I believe that we did so. We have an environmentally shakes for both our flavours. We use paper straws, we have glass jars—you get to keep your mason jar when you purchase a shake—and we have two flavours based on studies that we did of the most popular flavours of strawberry and chocolate.”
Another team, Sea Scrubs, took the environmental disaster of sargassum and transformed the seaweed into a body scrub and soap, which helps with having healthy the skin.
Nelson Zayden
Nelson Zayden, Rep., Sea Scrubs
“When they had an accumulation of sargassum washing up on the beaches of Belize, so we decided to incorporate that into our marketing expo and we came up with sea scrubs, body scrubs and a facial soap—all made of sargassum as the main ingredient, with honey, aloe vera, coconut oil. And for the soap, we have the sargassum, sea moss, all spices and essential oils in the soap. We want our Belizean people to come and buy our products because we are supporting a cause; we are trying to help this environmental issue that has happened.”
You’ve heard about ice cream chimichangas, sundaes and even ice cream floats, but what is fried ice cream?
Tyler Shaw
Tyler Shaw, Rep., Sizzling Surprise
“We give them this fried ice cream that is unheard of in Belize. We have a variety of different flavours, ranging from chocolate lovers, cookie monsters, smores and rainbow blast. So basically we deep fry ice cream and that is our creative edge and we also get our ice cream from Scoops or the Ice Cream Shoppe in Belize.”
Duane Moody for News Five.
