Meet Carlesa's Enterprise - Green Banana Pasta and Flour

We met Tonya Ifill at the Girlfriend's Expo in February of 2016. Her exhibit was a light in the dark at this expo. For any woman who was concerned about their health, living lightly and naturally with the earth and not cosmeticizing themselves heavily with products which cause health issues immediately or at some point in the future...well there were few vendors at this event to appeal to us.

If it wasn't for Carlesa's Enterprise along with Artist Made's handcrafted burlap wearable art, I would have left this expo very disappointed. There was excessive plastic packaging every where which made matters worse. The ambiance was nice though but it's hard to go wrong when you are hosting an event in the hanger of one of the only Concorde aircrafts in the world. End of rant.

So about this Green Banana Pasta. Tonya had samples of both green banana pasta and a porridge made with the green banana flour. It was yummy enough for me to buy the pasta on the spot. After hearing how affordable her pasta was compared to imported gluten-free pasta which usually sells for as much as $15 US per package, I was ready to try her pasta and explore how we could work together.

Through exhibiting with us at the Green Festival we have initiated the working relationship between Carlesa's Enterprise and the Better Caribbean Program. She sees the value of both the health and eco-conscious aspects of product development and has been seeking product feedback since World Food Day 2015 when she first distributed samples of her product.

Tonya started Carlesa's Enterprises in 2015 and she used the Barbados Girlfriend's Expo 2016 to launch her product officially. She is a member of the Youth Entrepreneurship Scheme (YES) (Barbados). Her idea to develop the pasta came during an Agro-processing course which she took in Guyana. While taking the course she also began to explore how she could eat more healthily using resources around her in Barbados. In her full-time job she noticed that many green bananas were going to waste and so she further explored the development of green banana flour.

She makes the flour and pasta by hand - from baking the green banana to using her hand-powered pasta maker. To further understand her story, we should know that she decided to launch her products as an expecting mother and is working on ways to expand her operations in the upcoming months. She is definitely committed to her craft and enthusiastic about the future of her products.

Green banana flour really stands above other gluten-free flours such as corn and rice because of the high iron content. This is one of the many reasons we at Better Caribbean see the value of her products - they have a high nutritional value. There is always the conundrum when making lifestyle choices to eat "healthier". What should we substitute our wheat flour with? Will alternatives taste good (or even better) or will healthy food just look and taste like cardboard?

The good news is that Carlesa's Enterprise is providing alternatives which are both healthy and have been created as solutions to one of the other major issues facing the region - we have gluts of certain fruits/veggies which may be deemed as of insignificant value while we are depleting other resources. Why would should anything go to waste in the Caribbean..especially products from which multiple types of products can be made - e.g. pumpkin and green banana? Why would we import quinoa or other gluten-free products (excessively and expensively) when we have other more reasonable and familiar alternatives in the Caribbean region?

We no longer have to answer these questions with "We have no Caribbean-based affordable, gluten free product options available here". Carlesa's Enterprise's has changed the face of gluten-free products with her green banana flour and pasta.

Carlesa's Enterprise products will be featured in the Better Caribbean Program's Exhibit at the Green Festival in Washington, DC (May 6 - 8, 2016). Come to support her product or give us some feedback.

See, learn, taste more ~

Through her Facebook page.

In May ~ Visit (or view recordings) of our Green Festival exhibit to learn more about her products and our partnership through the Better Caribbean Program.

As this is a Better Caribbean Program Business - we welcome all feedback or any questions on this article or about your customer experiences.

A step together towards a #bettercaribbean.

We can reached at bettercaribbean@gmail.com

#BetterCaribbean