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Bel-Car Export & Import Company Limited

explains Otto Friesen, Bel-Car’s Managing Director. “Belizean leaders, along

with some government officials, started looking for an export market, and

found it in the Caribbean. There was a private company that had invested a

little bit into Belizean bean products, but production increased and demand

for quality increased from the market side, and that company wasn’t up to

the demand. The farmers got frustrated and wanted to expand their produc-

tion. So, they pooled their resources, purchased the private company, along

with a state-of-the-art processing plant, and became Bel-Car.”

Within a decade, Bel-Car was shipping some eight million pounds

of black-eyed peas throughout the Caribbean and to markets as

far away as North, South, and Central America, the Middle East,

Asia, Europe, and Australia, making Belize the world’s fourth

largest exporter of the product. “80 to 85 percent of our

production goes to the Caribbean,” says Friesen. “The other

AT A GLANCE

Bel-Car Export & Import

Company Limited

WHAT:

A cooperative growing and distribution company

WHERE:

Spanish Lookout, Belize

WEBSITE:

www.belcar.bz

20 percent goes almost all over the

world.”

Today, the company continues to

export about 6.5 million pounds

of black-eyed peas and five million

pounds of red kidney beans, every

year, with a an approximate value

of $US4 million. In addition, Bel-

Car exports refined cornmeal, and

when available: white corn, yellow

corn, hominy corn (cracked corn),

corn grits, corn gluten, black beans,

and light speckled kidney beans.

“We are, by far, the biggest exporter

of pulses (dried legumes) and grain