The Blue Hill Meat Mart has closed its doors after 26 years, and while company President Patrick Treco plans to resume operations in a different form in the coming months, he told Guardian Business the high cost of electricity supplied by the Bahamas Electricity Corporation (BEC) was a major factor in the decision to shutter the operation. Nonetheless, Treco intends to try again "in a while" with a tweaked business model, most likely as a wholesaler.
Many in the commercial sector have complained about the increasing cost of doing business, with raised business license fees, higher National Insurance Board contributions and the implementation of value-added tax (VAT). But Treco - who owns two other retail outlets, the Southland Farm Store and Fox Hill Meat Mart, and the mostly closed wholesaler Continental Foods - explained that these factors were not his main issues.
"Basically BEC. BEC is a big factor, because we use a lot of refrigeration, so my bills are over $20,000 a month, and we just aren't generating enough revenue for overhead... [With the exception of Fox Hill] each one of those stores generates bills of over $20,000 a month," he said.
Treco talked with Guardian Business about what he had faced: One needs to "do volume", he said, "and there are so many people in the marketplace now, and so much competition and so much overhead cost".
"I will be honest with you, the retail food business, I don't feel too good about that, especially the retail meat business. The grocery business is straightforward, but too much foolishness is going on in the retail (meat business), when you look at prices. When you look at what you're selling product for and you look at what other people are selling product for, you start asking the question 'how is it possible'?
"...It is what it is. We're not going to lay down and die. We're going to restart from another angle," he said. "When we come back, we're going to come back strong."
Still, despite his optimism, Treco said his issues started some time ago.
"The recession started it, then the road reversal and then general competition. That's what it is. The market isn't there anymore. After the road reversal, business started just going downhill," he said.
Staff concerns
Treco said there are staff members who have been with him "for a long, long time" - as many as eight or nine from the inception of the business - and he has been trying to keep them off the proverbial unemployment line.
"This started two years ago and I just had to bite the bullet and do it, because it affected over 30 people," he said, explaining that there were not many avenues of assistance for retailers. "The banks have been having a lot of problems because they've been having a lot of bad mortgages and nobody is opening their arms to help you.
"It's going to work out. You just have to come at it from a different angle. You just can't give up, but if your sales drop below a certain point, it doesn't make sense," Treco said.
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