WHEN Vincent HoSang first set foot on American soil, the country was well into its third decade of unbroken economic boom, and its president, Lyndon B Johnson, was overseeing the final push to land three of his countrymen on the moon.

This unfathomable feat by the hands and ingenuity of the world’s superpower reverberated across the globe, and in deep rural Jamaica ignited the imagination of one young man who dreamed of an alternative to life’s daily drudgery.

That winter of 1968, the country boy packed his suitcase, exhausted his savings on a plane ticket, and headed north, leaving behind a society still in the infancy of self-governance.

While its daring national adventurism cemented America’s image as a place of endless possibilities, closer at home, HoSang had been bombarded by irresistible evidence that this was indeed, a consumer’s paradise.

“When I saw the things that the farm workers used to bring back, I said ‘this America is a good place’,” says HoSang. “I saw domestics went up and came back and built houses. They always sent nice stuff back to Jamaica. I remember they even sent a school mate of mine a bicycle, the wheels were so big and fat, and I said, ‘America makes good things’.”

If he harboured any lingering doubts that up North was indeed God’s chosen piece of real estate where the streets were lined with gold, they quickly dissipated after a returning farm worker became an instant celebrity and the favourite subject of conversation among the village flibbertigibbets.

“The farm worker came back with a Dodge motorcar,” HoSang lets on, his voice dropping almost to a whisper — betraying his persistent incredulousness.

The passage of 50-odd years since the poignant news spread like wildfire throughout the deep rural village in western Jamaica has not dimmed the recollection of this galvanising moment in the life of the then impressionable youngster.

He offers a context to illustrate why this event would have had such a big impact on him personally, as well as the entire community of Springfield, St James.

“Well, my father had the big shop in the village, and not even he had a motorcar!”

HoSang began his American economic mission in February 1968 assembling attaché cases at a factory in the Bronx, New York, earning minimum wage of US$1.60 an hour — taking home US$49 each week.

He hurriedly found a better paying job — doing night milk delivery for Imperial Dairies.

But marriage in 1976 to current wife Jeanette, herself a Jamaican emigrant (she is from Spanish Town), and the birth of their first child within a year, changed the economic equation.

HoSang says he always understood the two basic laws that underpinned America’s free enterprise system: that hard work was never going to be enough, and that capital always reaped a disproportionate reward for productive enterprise.

The fact is, after 10 years of hard labour, he had made at best, sideway movements along the country’s economic ladder.

To live the American dream, he had to shift gears radically, and join the ownership ranks.

“My ambition,” he explains, “was to start something for myself. I always wanted to have my own business ever since I came to the United States, but due to lack of capital and inexperience, I waited until I saved some money and built up my courage.”

HoSang sought the advice of an elder brother ‘King’ HoSang on how to translate his vision into a plan, and action.

“He said to me ‘why don’t you and Jeanette try patty and see if it will work, and I will try and help you out?’.”

On this whimsical, insubstantial marketing plan, Vincent and Jeanette were in business.

They used their savings to buy a fast-food eatery that had been advised for sale, thinking that they could just add patty to the current menu.

“We had no experience of doing business in America, so we thought that if the patty failed, we could fall back on the chicken,” he explains.

This transaction marked Vincent and Jeanette’s entry point to the ownership class, and, as it turned out, the real beginning of their American dream.

Located in West Bronx, ‘Kingsbridge Delight’ as it was called, catered primarily to ethnic taste buds, offering chicken, shrimp, ribs, and French fries.

Here, in a nutshell, in the words of Vincent, is what the couple had in mind: “We knew the business was not making a profit but our goal was to introduce the Jamaican cuisine and patties. Jeanette was very instrumental in the development of the Jamaican dishes and after about six months, some long hours per day for seven days a week, and a lot of sacrifices, it started to show a small profit.”

They quickly ascended the corporate learning curve. They expanded their menus, opened new locations and zealously pursued every opportunity for new acquisitions.

The current profile of the two companies that the HoSangs own — Royal Caribbean Bakery; and Caribbean Food Delights — represents the accumulation of a series of investments, acquisitions and organic expansion over 30 years in operation.

The companies have a combined workforce of 120, and do tens of millions of dollars in annual sales — the HoSangs keeping their exact sales numbers close to their chest.

Jeanette is CEO of Royal Caribbean Bakery Inc, the Mount Vernon manufacturer of baking products — pastries, bulla, cake, bread, and buns.

As part of the division of labour within this family enterprise, Vincent is CEO of Caribbean Food Delights, which operates from a 100,000 square foot factory at Tappan in New York. It is from this location that the ubiquitous trademark frozen patties and other products are made for national and international distribution — all 280,000 each weekday.

Daughter Sabrina is chief operating officer, while the mandate of her sibling Damian, a mechanical engineer, is to ensure that the various baking equipment are kept in optimal working condition.

The Caribbean Food Delights brand can be found inside the refrigerators of the country’s most recognisable retail outlets. These are carried in 1,300 Wal-Mart stores, 100 BJ’s Wholesale shops, over 90 Costco, plus many Sam’s Club, Stop & Shop, Cost U Less, and Harris Teeter outlets. Consumers also have the option of popping into a neighbourhood supermarket — just around the corner — to grab a package of frozen patties.

Packaging is organised to maximise consumer convenience — from two to 10-packs at the club stores, to 50-pack containers, popular with institutional customers like restaurants.

Taking their companies to its current position as one of the largest American-based enterprises operated by a member of the Jamaican diaspora required lots of risk-taking, ploughing back of profit, bank financing, and what HoSang describes as very dedicated staff and highly skilled cadre of management.

“Without good employees the business cannot be successful,” he offers, singling out for praise, Raquel, the R&D and food science specialist.

“She is extremely dedicated and works hard to make sure that we maintain our SQF (Safe Quality Food) certification.”

A review of the growth path of the HoSangs’ companies leave no doubt about the entrepreneurial, risk-taking spirit that must have driven their progress.

One big early move — just two years into the couple’s business experience — was the 1980 acquisition of Sunrise Bakery, which became Royal Caribbean Bakery.

In 1984, the bakery was moved into a new expanded home — a 15,000 square foot building on East 233rd Street in the Bronx. Here, it co-existed with its sister company, Caribbean Food Delights, which had been incorporated as the frozen food arm of the group.

A successful move into the wholesale trade drove sales, and once again, forced the relocation to bigger facilities — this time, a 20,000-square foot plant in Mount Vernon, New York in 1987.

As more of the products continued to find favour with customers of the retail clubs, the HoSangs realised that they had to invest millions of dollars to build a factory of the size and scope that would ensure reliability of supply and their capacity to maintain the contracts with the notoriously fickle retailers.

In 1993, they bought a 73,000 square foot building on 10 acres of land in Tappan New York, to house the Caribbean Food Delights factory.

Recently the HoSangs spent another US$22 million to add 30,000 square feet and modernise the facility — from its mixing equipment to the packaging line.

“It was a big risk,” Vincent acknowledges. “We got most of the money from the bank and we are still paying back the loan.”

Royal Caribbean Bakery’s brand of bread, buns, cakes and pastries are still produced at the Mount Vernon plant.

HoSang is the first to point out that the business has had its fair share of challenges. For example, he cites the attempt to break into the UK market, and the decision to discontinue that effort because of the unsustainable levels of receivables that were being built up in that market. He was also forced to beat a hasty retreat from an attempt by PriceMart in Jamaica to introduce the Caribbean Food Delights brands of patties to the local market, after objections were raised by Jamaican manufacturing interests.

He has also shelved plans to go into franchising, having conceded that it was not a lucrative proposition.

Additionally, in recent times, there has also been cost pressure, with the price of critical inputs like meat and flour, rising by as much as 30 per cent.

“If I tried to pass on all the increase to customers, I would not be able to do any business,” he remarks. Currently, customers in the USA pay anywhere from US$1.25 to $2 for a patty, depending on where it is bought.

Still the HoSangs are delighted to have built an enterprise that has allowed them the resources to contribute selflessly to charity. They have even created the Vincent HoSang Family Foundation to formalise and channel the money they give to good causes. Jamaica has been the primary beneficiary of their generosity.

For example:

* In 2002, full scholarships with a combined value of US$150,000 were awarded to six students for the entrepreneurial programme at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica.

* In 2005, the foundation donated a fully equipped mobile health clinic worth US$180,000 to Dr Roy Streete of the Organisation for International Development, for free dental and medical services to the island’s poor.

* The foundation donated US$250,000 to Father HoLung’s Missionaries Of the Poor to build a chapel in Jamaica.

* For the past 14 years, each April, Caribbean Food Delights serves over 4,000 meals to over 400 student athletes at the Penn Relays in the USA.

Here is how this avuncular patriot explains his sense of charity:

“There is a pie out there and if everybody gets a slice they will be happy. I will choke if I try to eat the whole pie. I want to see Caribbean people bond like Koreans and the Jews. If we can achieve this, we will be a strong force to reckon with.”

When you hear Vincent HoSang speaking, it’s as though he never left the land of his birth. For one, there is no hint of the American lilt corrupting his Jamaican accent. He remains fiercely nationalistic, and everything is seen through the prism of the Jamaican experience.

Here, for example, is the perspective of a man — who has spent all his adult life in America — on an award he recently accepted.

“On December 10, 2010, I received the First Commonwealth Award presented by His Royal Highness The Duke of Gloucester from the St George’s Society. I’m the first Jamaican to receive that award.”

Moses Jackson is the founder of the Jamaica Observer Business Leader Award programme. He may be reached at moseshbsjackson@yahoo.com