he building to house the Regional Food Hub at Yarrowkabra is expected to be completed within four weeks, after which a United States company will begin installing cold-storage equipment, Agriculture Minister Zulfikar Mustapha says.
Mustapha made the disclosure during a visit to the site along the Soesdyke-Linden Highway to inspect the progress of the works.
“This will be a game changer for us in terms of food production and proper storage of perishable commodities. This food hub will have modern cold-storage facilities,” he was quoted as saying in a Ministry of Agriculture release.
The release did not state the overall cost of the hub or give a date for the facility to become operational.
Mustapha said that following the completion of the building, it would be handed over to Blumberg Grain and Logistics, which is expected to install the cold-storage systems. He added that the hub would give farmers another outlet for their produce and improve Guyana’s capacity to supply fresh commodities to other Caribbean Community (CARICOM) states.
In June, the Department of Public Information (DPI) reported that construction was approximately 50% complete. At that time, Mustapha said the local construction phase was expected to be completed by the end of September, after which Blumberg would install the cold-storage and other operating systems.
Work on the hub began in 2023. In June 2024, DPI reported that the contract for construction of the facility had been awarded at a cost of $625.2 million.
The government signed a memorandum of understanding with Blumberg in July 2025 covering the marketing and branding of the hub and the development of agricultural exports. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, the facility is intended to support the cleaning, sorting, packaging, labelling and temperature-controlled storage of produce.
Mustapha linked the project to CARICOM’s regional food-security programme, now referred to as the “25 by 2025+5” initiative.
The original 25 by 2025 programme sought to reduce CARICOM’s food-import bill, estimated at more than US$6 billion, by 25% by the end of 2025. In February 2025, CARICOM announced that the initiative had been extended to 2030, citing natural disasters and continuing disruptions to global supply chains.
CARICOM said regional food production increased by approximately 24% between 2022 and late 2024. Investments under the programme have included cold-storage facilities, farm-to-market roads, solar dryers and dairy projects.
Mustapha said the Yarrowkabra hub was among Guyana’s investments intended to support the revised regional target.
“I’ve always said that for this initiative to be successful, Guyana has to be successful, and this is one of the areas that we are investing in to make our contribution to the 25 by 2025+5 Initiative,” he said.
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