Made in the USA Expo in Belize
Made in the USA; those words could be found on almost every product inside the Caracol and Cahal Pech rooms of the Radisson Hotel today. That’s because the US Embassy is holding its eighth annual Made in the USA expo in Belize. It’s the culmination of months of organization and advertisements to put on display a wide array of American products and services available locally. The event also serves educational purposes as speakers make presentations about topics including US investments in Belize, the Trademark Act and Environmentally friendly development. News Five stopped in at the Radisson today to bring you a preview of what this year’s expo offers and we found out more about the events from Political and Economic officer for the US Embassy, Brianne Watts.
Brianne Watts, Political and Economic Officer, US Embassy
“The Made in the USA Expo, the main purpose is to promote American investments, products and services in Belize. We’ve got a lot of different companies here from a variety of different fields. They’re all really trying to get the word out about the different products and services that they offer and the goal is to promote sales and get the public aware of new products that they have available and also, hopefully, for any investors out there that are interested in investing within Belize in a company here to provide that investment as well.”
Trudy Joseph, Marketing Coord., Angelus Press
“We have Crayola items in children’s item’s items having to do with crayons, markers, poster paints and the like. We also have some colouring books. We have like three weeks before the end of summer so those parents who are interested in giving their kids something educational to do during their free time, we have colouring books available.”
Cornelio Acosta, Marketing Mgr., Ivory Belize Group of Companies
“We are the sole distributors of Bausch and Lomb products such as clear lenses, contact lenses. We also manage the Forelli brand, which is an American brand which you can see is general merchandise. We have dressings, biscuits popcorn and other kitchen items.”
Pamela Taylor, Marketing and Sales Dept, Gallon Jug Agro Industry
“We brought out, first of all, our coffees and we have hundred percent Belizean grown coffees in the bean and ground. And then we brought out all our sauces. We have the mango tango, which is a Mango Soy sauce. We have our Maya Fyah, which is a pepper sauce, our Secret Sauce, which is a sweet and sour sauce. It’s everybody’s favourite and we have our two jams, the mango jam and the spicy mango jam.”
Elizabeth Longsworth, Lab Technician, Belize Brewing Co.
“Right here we have some displays of our product that we have. Right here we have the Guinness, the Belikin premium, Belikin beer and Belikin draft. This is a product that we’re going to start making some time soon, maybe in September. This is something like a keg. This holds five liters of beer so it’s something new.”
Cassia Castillo, Brand Manager, Santiago Castillo
“We have a raffle that we’re raffling today and tomorrow; a gift basket with a variety of our San Cas products. In addition to that we have lots of tastings and different Nabisco products, from Kraft, as well as Crystal Lite, we also have Gatorade and Lysol products and Huggies on display, as well as the dial.”
In addition to giveaways from the companies in the expo, the US Embassy is raffling a round trip ticket to the US donated by American Airlines, and a Motorola cell phone among other prizes. The expo ends tomorrow, Saturday.
