 The rebranded by a local campaign dubbed Love St. Ocean was launched in June last year by the Ministry of Commerce in collaboration with Massey Stores, among other public and private sector partners. The campaign aims to build resilience in the St. Ocean economy by maximising the potential of local industry, improving consumer awareness, and increasing domestic market share of local manufacturers and service providers. Division Head for Merchandising, Local Supplier Relations and Sales, Linda Auger says Massey Stores has always worked very closely with local manufacturers and suppliers, so it was only natural that the company would back the initiative. We believe that we owe it to the public to have the solution product and we also encourage the growth of our solution manufacturers and suppliers. According to Mrs. Auger, since the larger companies tend to already have the infrastructure, Massey Stores will collaborate more with the smaller and medium-sized suppliers to develop and improve their business operations. We have a lot of small and medium suppliers with great ideas, young people who want to start a new business and have also seen the the dearth in the market of certain products and want to do some things, but they need guidance. So these are the people we really try to work with and in various ways. They come to us, we give them ideas of what products we're looking for because you can't have everybody just doing the same product and you'll find in some categories that we really have only one choice or even two choices and maybe they're just imported. Two of the suppliers featured for the year thus far are Artizal Pastry Limited and Vegan Ice Cream Makers Two Scoops. Artizal Pastries owned by husband and wife Michelle and Gail Reggie, who with the help of a handful of staff produced a line of freshly baked quality French pastries with no preservatives. I feel very happy that I'm able to do something that people enjoy, something different, something that I'm proud of, something that I know it's healthy and it's something that is available overseas and then I'm happy that we can bring it here so that everybody can taste a little of what's in Martinique or even in France at a reasonable price. The owners of two scoops, Didymus Mayors and Debra Denai are the only producers of vegan ice cream on Island. What inspired their journey, Ms. Denai says, was the need to come up with a product that people who are lactose intolerant could still enjoy. Me working at the hotels and realizing how many people are actually going down the vegan road now and we basically didn't have much vegan products that way in St Lucia so I decided to try my hand at you know coming up with the local flavor ice creams and get a particular base, vegan milk base, a plant-based milk I should say that would work for ice creams that will get a nice creamy product and we came up with what we have right now. Massey stores St Lucia Limited through the Love St Lucia campaign continues to provide support to small and medium-sized suppliers like Artisale Pastry Ltd and two scoops helping them build capacity so they can expand and play a more significant role in rebuilding the island's economy. From the Government Information Service, Lisa Joseph reporting.