ReNORTHEAST COAST
discovering
BELLO
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hat began as a small-scale fruit preserves operation in a family kitchen in 1938 has today become an internationally recognised brand which is proudly, 100% Dominican. Bello “The Taste of the Nature Isle” began life as an agro-processing company in 1944. Its original owner Cecil “Bello” Bellot, named the company after his father, as “Parry W. Bellot & Company”. As production grew, Cecil realised that he needed an organised individual to run the administrative side of the business. He consulted the local convent school, which led to the employ of Sybil née Dejean. She ran the office between 1949-1959 before she migrated to the USA with her husband Vantil Fagan.
www.foodanddrink-caribbean.com
The Fagan family grew up in New York. Vantil was a trained engineer and he worked as a gifted troubleshooter for United Parcel Service of America Inc. (UPS).
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The Fagan’s family path took an unanticipated turn when Cecil Bellot visited the family in New York in 1983 during his vacation. He planned to sell the company and offered it to Mr and Mrs Fagan. Coincidentally, at this time, the Fagan’s youngest son Michael was working for Fruit Crest Corporation, which developed ‘Juicy Juice’, one of the first 100% fruit juice beverage brands. Unaware of his parent’s negotiations, he took Cecil on a tour of the automated factory and they realised that the similarity with Bello was startling as the company also produced fruit preserves, sauces and juice.
family took over Bello in 1985, with the purchase of Cecil Bellot’s shares. Meanwhile, Michael Fagan pursued a degree in Marketing Communications & Computer Science at Barry University in Florida. His father Vantil tackled the engineering side of the business and worked at automating the many manual tasks to increase productivity. Sybil Fagan took up her place at the helm of the business and brought the administrative and accounting functions up to date. Perry Fagan also worked with his parents for 2 years as part of the management team before returning to the USA. Michael Fagan came into the family business in the 1990s as Sales & Marketing Manager. He upgraded the labelling and packaging to sell Bello as gourmet Caribbean products to the USA. Bello’s excellent range of distinct products includes tropical fruit concentrates, jams, jellies, coffee, old-fashioned spiced cocoa tea and vegetable chips, amongst others. Its most prominent condiment is their prized range of pepper sauces. Michael developed the distribution network and built export from 30% to 90%. Bello supported hundreds of families in Dominica, with an intricate effect on the economy as agroprocessing was earning considerable foreign exchange through export. Bello became the flagship Caribbean pepper sauce brand and manufacturer, known worldwide throughout the Caribbean community as the authentic West Indian pepper sauce.
Tel: +1 (767) 448 In2860 pwbellot@cwdom.dm 2010, after an absence of ten years, Michael
The future of Bello revealed itself and the Fagan
to Bello Managing to deal with Parry W. Bellot & Co. returned Ltd. PO Boxas22, CastleDirector, Comfort, Roseau, Do