> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.lacaribenanews.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Guyana's President Launched a Lusignan Pepper Sauce in Doha, Under the Theme Building Guyana's Global Brand - URL: https://www.lacaribenanews.com/umami-guyana-qatar-agro-processing-export-2026/ - Published: 2026-09-09T13:11:33.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-13T05:14:56.000Z - Description: President Irfaan Ali and First Lady Arya Ali attended the launch of UMAMI's product line in Qatar at Abu Sidra in Doha, at an embassy evening themed Building Guyana's Global Brand. Guyana's entire 2025 export trade with Qatar was US$36,205, with no food category. - Author: Theon Alleyne - Tags: Guyana, Qatar, Trade, Business, Manufacturing, Agro-processing **Quick summary:** President Irfaan Ali and First Lady Arya Ali attended the launch of UMAMI's product line in Qatar at Abu Sidra in Doha on a three-day state visit, at an embassy-hosted evening themed "Building Guyana's Global Brand". Food security was on the agenda with Qatar's commerce minister. Guyana's entire 2025 export trade with Qatar was US$36,205, with no food category. By LCN Business Desk President Irfaan Ali landed in Doha on 6 September for a three-day state visit. He met the Amir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, at the Amiri Diwan, and separately met the chief executive of the Qatar Investment Authority, the energy minister, the finance minister, the environment minister and the Minister of Commerce and Industry. The Amir hosted a luncheon for the delegation. Foreign Minister Hugh Todd travelled with the President, alongside Guyana's Ambassador to Qatar, Safraaz Ahmad Shadood, Director of Presidential Affairs Marcia Nadir-Sharma, and George Andrew Hallaq. The Office of the President's account of the visit records discussions at each of those meetings. It records no signing, and publishes no agreement, memorandum or protocol. At the meeting with Commerce and Industry Minister Sheikh Faisal bin Thani Al Thani, discussions "focused on potential opportunities in food security, mining, digitisation, and infrastructure through greater collaboration between the two countries' private sectors". At the finance meeting, on collaboration between the Qatar Development Bank and the Guyana Development Bank. At the environment meeting, on climate change, biodiversity and carbon credits. Food security is the region's own unmet target. CARICOM's deadline for cutting the food import bill has [slipped to 2030](https://www.lacaribenanews.com/belize-emerges-as-caricoms-food-security-benchmark-as-regional-deadline-slips-to-2030/), with Belize the benchmark against which the rest are measured. One evening of the visit was given to a company that makes pepper sauce in Lusignan. ## What happened at Abu Sidra? The Office of the President records that Ali and First Lady Arya Ali "joined dignitaries and guests at Abu Sidra for a post-celebration of Guyana's 60th Independence Anniversary, hosted by Guyana's Ambassador to Qatar, HE Safraaz Shadood, and the Guyana Embassy in Doha, under the theme 'Building Guyana's Global Brand'." The programme "featured addresses on entrepreneurship, highlighted by the launch of Guyana's UMAMI product line in the Qatari market". Todd and Director of Presidential Affairs Marcia Nadir-Sharma also attended. A photograph released with the announcement shows Ali examining a bottle in front of a display wall carrying several dozen UMAMI products, with two Qatari guests and members of the Guyanese party alongside him, beneath a banner bearing the coat of arms and the anniversary's gold 60. No Qatari distributor, importer or retailer has been named, and no volume, value or shelf commitment has been published. UMAMI's entry into Trinidad and Tobago in March was announced on different terms. Massy Distribution put its name to that one, committed its supermarket and hospitality channels, and sent its executives. ## What did the trade record look like before this? United Nations COMTRADE records Guyana's total exports to Qatar at **US$36,205 in 2025**, down from US$169,923 in 2024\. The categories in 2025 are tools and cutlery, electrical equipment, optical and medical apparatus, organic chemicals, machinery, nickel, plastics, iron and steel, and rubber. The 2024 line was dominated by wood, at US$99,850 of the US$169,923\. No food or agricultural category appears in either year. Diplomatic relations between the two countries date to 1996, and each has an embassy in the other's capital. ## Where did UMAMI come from? The company began operations in 2013, started by re-migrant Guyanese who saw an opening for high-quality agro-processed sauces and condiments. The name is Japanese, for a pleasant or savoury taste. Its first product was a hot sauce. Its managing director, Chris Persaud, is a chemist by training. In 2017, when the company shipped 600 cartons of hot sauce, red hot pepper sauce and Scoville pepper sauce to **Dominica**, about three tons of hot peppers bought from local farmers, [Kaieteur News quoted him](https://www.kaieteurnewsonline.com/2017/06/11/umami-penetrates-dominican-market/?ref=lacaribenanews.com) saying the company had "recently upgraded our facilities to full automation" and could fill the order inside a week. By 2019 the range had passed eight products and UMAMI launched single-serve ketchup and hot sauce sachets aimed at the foodservice trade. [Guyana Standard quoted Persaud](https://www.guyanastandard.com/2019/06/29/umami-inc-launches-packaged-ketchup-hot-sauce-to-counter-dominance-of-foreign-brands/?ref=lacaribenanews.com) describing what a Guyanese restaurant could offer a customer before that: "condiments in a knotted plastic bag or the evil import." He called the company one of the "guardians of the Guyanese galaxy when it comes to agro-processed, value-added products", and tied the opening in foodservice to the oil economy, saying the expansion was "hinged on the incoming prosperity promised through the growing oil and gas industry". The founders were returning Guyanese, which runs against the current this newspaper reported in [The Exit Corridor](https://www.lacaribenanews.com/guyana-brain-drain-2026/), on the educated class leaving as the oil economy opened doors outward. ## What did the Black Bush Polder plant change? In August 2021 the Ministry of Agriculture signed a Memorandum of Understanding with UMAMI Incorporated and the Guyana Office for Investment for the construction of a processing facility. It was built at Mibicuri, in Black Bush Polder, Region Six, and came into operation in 2023. [Stabroek News reported in August 2024](https://www.stabroeknews.com/2024/08/04/news/guyana/over-50-black-bush-farmers-supplying-umami-agro-processing-facility/?ref=lacaribenanews.com) that more than fifty Black Bush Polder farmers were supplying the plant, that six people were employed at that location, and that alongside peppers it was producing pickled okra, bitter gourd and cucumbers. The facility had held no public opening. Persaud described it as a way into the produce chain rather than simply a factory. "Black Bush Polder, as many of you may know, is pretty much the heartland of our primary produce," he said at the signing, adding that the company saw "an opportunity to transfer technology to the farmers so that they can increase their capacity," and that the goal was to extend the shelf life of traditional produce "so that we can have less wastage and spoilage." Agriculture Minister Zulfikar Mustapha said at the same signing that Black Bush Polder produces a great deal and that its farmers are often short-changed on what they are paid for it, and that a processing facility would let them process their own produce while creating work for other residents. Six jobs at one site is small against a national policy. The plant is nonetheless how peppers grown in Region Six reach a shelf abroad under a Guyanese label. ## How did the export line grow? The sequence runs Dominica in 2017, Canada in 2025, Trinidad and Tobago in March 2026, and Qatar in September 2026. UMAMI is not the first Guyanese agro-processor to be walked onto a foreign shelf with official help. [Maliyah's Kitchen went from a GMSA award to a United States listing](https://www.lacaribenanews.com/maliyahs-kitchen-guyana-us-export-go-invest/) with GO-Invest behind it, and [Hummingbird Products took Rupununi-sourced cassareep and pepper sauce to the International Building Expo](https://www.lacaribenanews.com/hummingbird-products-guyana-cassareep-pepper-sauce/). The pattern is a small processor, a locally sourced input, and a state agency opening the door. UMAMI signed a distribution agreement with Massy Distribution covering supermarket and hospitality channels across Trinidad and Tobago. [The Trinidad Guardian reported](https://www.guardian.co.tt/business/massy-signs-condiment-distribution-deal-6.2.2548475.870fea7e91?ref=lacaribenanews.com) the announcement, with Massy Group president and chief executive James McLetchie present, alongside Ambikah Mongroo, executive vice president of Massy's integrated retail portfolio, and Troy Beharry, senior vice president and chief executive of Massy Distribution Guyana. Mongroo said Massy was "proud to introduce Umami's distinctive flavours to the T&T market." Persaud said the partnership let UMAMI "enter one of the Caribbean's most dynamic food markets with a trusted regional leader." Massy owns and supplies the shelves it distributes into, so the Trinidad arrangement gives UMAMI a standing listing rather than a single consignment. ## What does the tax change do? Guyana's 2026 budget, tabled in January, removes corporate taxes on agriculture and agro-processing businesses, and widens the list of products eligible for export allowance. The government's stated reasoning is that untaxed retained earnings fund the capacity that exports require. President Ali made the connection explicit when the Massy deal was announced, saying the removal of corporate taxes on agro-processing was meant to stimulate investment, expand production capacity and position Guyana as a competitive supplier of value-added food products within the Caribbean. For a company with a plant in Mibicuri and a listing in Port of Spain, that measure lands on retained earnings in the same year it needs to fund a third and fourth market. The same policy has a second face. In February the President proposed a shared bottling facility so that no producer need buy its own blower, and in July the National Assembly [funded a state-owned bottler instead](https://www.lacaribenanews.com/guyana-state-bottled-water-msme-shared-infrastructure-2026/), which lowers no private producer's cost base and adds a competitor to their market. ## Why does Qatar matter beyond the shelf? Qatar is already in Guyana's offshore accounts. QatarEnergy holds 35 per cent of Block S4, a 1,788-square-kilometre licence signed on 11 November 2025, with TotalEnergies operating on 40 per cent and PETRONAS holding 25 per cent. A US$15 million signing bonus from that agreement was paid into Guyana's Natural Resource Fund. Gulf capital arriving in Caribbean hydrocarbons is a pattern this newspaper has tracked before, in [the Loran-Manatee reporting](https://www.lacaribenanews.com/trinidad-venezuela-cross-border-gas-loran-manatee-2026/) on Caracas licensing its half of a cross-border gas field to Abu Dhabi and Doha. The Doha talks also raised collaboration between the Qatar Development Bank and the Guyana Development Bank, the institution whose five priority sectors this newspaper [set out in May](https://www.lacaribenanews.com/guyana-development-bank-five-priority-sectors/). The Office of the President records that as a discussion, and publishes nothing arising from it. So the published record of the state visit is a record of discussion, and a hydrocarbon block signed ten months earlier remains the documented Guyanese interest in the relationship. The item the Office of the President chose to highlight from the week is a pepper sauce made from Black Bush Polder produce. ### What does the title card show? The title card sets UMAMI's export sequence against what Guyana has previously sold to Qatar, under the heading "Four markets in nine years". - 2017, Dominica: 600 cartons of hot sauce, red hot pepper sauce and Scoville pepper sauce, about three tons of peppers bought from local farmers. Source: Kaieteur News. - 2025, Canada: products available in stores. Source: News Room Guyana. - March 2026, Trinidad and Tobago: distribution agreement with Massy Distribution covering supermarket and hospitality channels. Source: Trinidad Guardian, Stabroek News. - September 2026, Qatar: product line launched at an embassy-hosted event at Abu Sidra, Doha. Source: Office of the President, Guyana; News Room Guyana. - US$36,205, Guyana's total exports to Qatar in 2025, with no food category in it, against US$169,923 in 2024, of which wood was US$99,850\. Source: United Nations COMTRADE. - 50 or more Black Bush Polder farmers supplying the Mibicuri plant, and six people employed at that location in August 2024\. Source: Stabroek News. - 2013, the year UMAMI began operations, founded by re-migrant Guyanese. Source: Guyana Standard. - Quoted on the card: "Building Guyana's Global Brand", the theme of the Doha event. Source: Office of the President, Guyana. ## Frequently Asked Questions What exactly happened in Doha? The Office of the President records that UMAMI's product line was launched in the Qatari market at a post-celebration of Guyana's 60th Independence Anniversary at Abu Sidra, hosted by Guyana's Ambassador to Qatar, Safraaz Shadood, and the Guyana Embassy in Doha, under the theme "Building Guyana's Global Brand". President Irfaan Ali, First Lady Arya Ali, Foreign Minister Hugh Todd and Director of Presidential Affairs Marcia Nadir-Sharma attended. No Qatari distributor, importer or retailer has been named, and no volume or value has been published. What does the official record say about agreements? The Office of the President's account of the visit records discussions at each meeting. It records no signing, and publishes no agreement, memorandum or protocol. How much does Guyana currently export to Qatar? United Nations COMTRADE records US$36,205 in total Guyanese exports to Qatar in 2025, across tools, electrical equipment, optical and medical apparatus, organic chemicals, machinery, nickel, plastics, iron and steel and rubber. The 2024 total was US$169,923, of which wood accounted for US$99,850\. No food category appears in either year. Who runs UMAMI and when did it start? The company began operations in 2013, started by re-migrant Guyanese. Chris Persaud, a chemist, is its managing director. It manufactures sauces, seasonings and condiments from locally sourced ingredients. Where does UMAMI get its produce? Stabroek News reported in August 2024 that more than fifty Black Bush Polder farmers were supplying the company's plant at Mibicuri, which came into operation in 2023 under a 2021 Memorandum of Understanding with the Ministry of Agriculture and the Guyana Office for Investment. What tax treatment applies to agro-processing in Guyana? Guyana's 2026 budget, tabled in January 2026, removes corporate taxes on agriculture and agro-processing businesses and expands the list of products eligible for export allowance. --- Guyana sold Qatar US$36,205 of goods last year, and none of it was food. The event that changed that was hosted by Guyana's own embassy, on Guyana's own anniversary, and no Qatari buyer has been named in it.