Business is all about building and maintaining relationships, said Avishay Singh, director of Shahil’s Party Ice and Frozen Supplies.

“When your customers want the products, it is your responsibility to deliver and deliver on time. Your customers don’t want to know what issues you had to face in order to be able to deliver what they want. So it’s important to keep your customers happy,” said the 26 year old father of one.

“I also treat my staff nicely and that’s why they have been with us since 2017 when the company started. In Fiji, people change jobs quickly but our staff have been with me since 2017 and they’ve also helped other people join me. I also believe in investing in training of staff. We are planning to go into hydroponics so we sent one of our staff to do a course in hydroponics. He now has a certificate but people tell me don’t train your staff because they will leave. But I train my staff because they will help the business grow. Running a business is also about taking risks. You have to take the risk. If staff leave, then there must be issues with you. So you have to treat them right, you have to give them something that will make them want to stay.”

Mr Singh recalled how, at 22 years old, he had to quickly learn the ropes when his dad underwent an operation and was bedridden for a month, forcing him to leave his mechanic job at Pacific Building Solutions to focus on what had been a family run business, supplying party ice to fishermen, small dairy shops and canteens in their neighbourhood and nearby communities.

“I used to be involved in the business but only during weekends. My dad and my mum were running it until my dad’s operation and he was bedridden for a month, so I left my job to run the business,” he said.

In four years, the young entrepreneur has taken the company from party ice to an expanded line of frozen cassava and dalo, packaged in 1kg packs and sold in major supermarket outlets in Suva and the Western Division.

“The business started as Party Ice in 2017 by my dad who had gone to America and he saw a deep freezer there that makes ice at the press of a button. When he returned, we went around to supermarkets and we found out only selected supermarkets were selling party ice but the prices were very high. So what we did was we kept our price affordable and it had a demand in the Fiji market because Fiji people love to party, whether it’s wedding, birthdays or when Fiji’s rugby game is playing, picnic, etc. And the ice we do keeps for a very long time because it’s cubed and it’s frozen for 24 hours before it’s delivered. At the time, we were not supplying it to supermarkets. We were only targeting small dairy shops and small canteens. Then I approached MaxVal-u and that was our breakthrough. We started growing from there,” said Mr Singh.

“We started with just two deep freezers. Now we have 14 deep freezers, we’ve bought a small farm in Koronivia Rd and built a farmhouse there for our workers to live in and farm, so they stay on the farm instead of going all the way to their villages just to come back the next day.”

Last year, the company started selling frozen peeled cassava and dalo, inspired by hardships faced by farmers in Viria Village in Naitasiri, who are also friends of the family.

“They had all these cassava and dalo but no market so we decided to help them out by buying their produce, packaging them and supplying the supermarkets. It became very popular and now we have 24 farmers that we work closely with and source our rootcrops from them,” Mr Singh said.

This year, frozen cassava chips was added to the product line and there are plans to add breadfruit and dalo chips once financial assistance from Business Assistance Fiji (BAF), which Mr Singh had applied for, comes through for the purchase of a new slice cutter to make chips.
Sustainable agribusiness Growth and success of the business has not gone unnoticed.

Last year, Shahil’s Party Ice and Frozen Supplies won the agriculture category of the Fiji Development Bank’s SME awards.

“It was a great achievement, especially for my dad who was happy to know that our efforts are being recognised. Winning that award also brought a change in our mindset because after that, a lot of people approached us to view our products and also the demand for our product also grew and together with that prize money of $5000, we were able to invest in our business with a solar set up, so that we can build a sustainable agribusiness. We now have a solar system that actually powers one ice machine and three deep freezers and also our house lights. We’d love to go fully solar and only use EFL as a back-up. So it’s a big savings on costs and is also environmentally friendly.”

As one of the growing number of green conscious businesses springing up in Fiji, Shahil’s Party Ice and Frozen Goods wants to be one of Fiji’s first dedicated zero-waste agribusiness in Fiji.

“We are helping our farmers start their own pig farms because we have a small pig farm in Koronivia, where we have 25 pigs. So when the pigs give birth, we give the farmers small piglets to start off their pig farms. Because in the village there’s a lot of food waste, so they can
give that to the pigs. So we are teaching farmers how they can have pig farms to take care of their food waste,” Mr Singh said.

“It’s in the plan to expand, so we are also looking for an agriculture land where we can expand our pig farm. We are also waiting for funds from BAF for the slice cutter and also it will help in the purchasing of biogas plant. So we’ll use rootcrop peelings, cook it, give it to the pigs and the pig waste will feed the biogas, which will then produce gas and the fertiliser. So our business cycle will be zero-waste. It will be implemented by the end of this year. We’ll get liquid fertiliser as a new product which we will be giving out to some of the farmers.”