Soap makers in Castries get export training as Saint Lucia builds on craft heritage

A training programme in Castries is helping Saint Lucia's artisanal soap makers win certification and sell their products beyond the island, in an initiative designed to turn a celebrated craft tradition into a serious export business. The Commonwealth Secretariat-backed sessions focused on Good Manufacturing Practices, standard operating procedures and general export readiness for the small producers who make up much of the country's soap sector.

As reported by Commonwealth Secretariat, the Commonwealth Secretariat, the work targets the island's Savon Sent Lisi soap-making tradition, which UNESCO has hailed as a natural success. Many of the artisanal producers involved are micro and small enterprises that have struggled to meet global product standards, and the programme set out to close compliance gaps and unlock regional and international markets for goods rooted in the culture and traditions of Saint Lucia.

Among those taking part was Blu De Franco, who runs Blu Organics in the capital, producing everything from smoothing scrubs to brightening serums using ingredients such as coconut oil, ginger and turmeric. She said the training had helped demystify the regulatory and export requirements that once seemed out of reach, giving producers the confidence to scale their businesses. For small makers, certification and paperwork have always been the unglamorous part of the trade.

The sessions were attended mainly by women-owned enterprises, from women-led micro-producers and small-scale cosmetic and skincare entrepreneurs to rural and community-based producers working with traditional botanical knowledge, as well as emerging exporters facing regulatory and market-entry barriers. Organisers noted that participants increasingly came from outside the sector too, including the legal profession, academia, education and agriculture, all keen to strengthen entrepreneurial skills for growing their businesses.

The initiative forms part of the Commonwealth's wider effort to move small businesses from informal production to structured, export-ready operations, improving the competitiveness of locally made, value-added goods. Kensle Nepture of the Saint Lucia Bureau of Standards, which works on product quality and standards for food producers, builders and exporters alike, joined the Castries sessions to see the learning first-hand. She said she sees the value of working together as a community to support producers, improve quality, achieve certification and access new markets.

A next step comes in November, when the Commonwealth Secretariat will launch a Trade Portal and MSME Directory at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Antigua and Barbuda. The portal is intended to bring together buyers, sellers and businesses such as Blu Organics across the Commonwealth, providing trade-related information on markets, products and competition in one place. It will also let businesses reach a wider audience, increase sales and reduce the effects of seasonality, drawing on the Commonwealth Trade Advantage.

For the economy of Saint Lucia, the programme speaks to a broader challenge: how a small island turns heritage crafts and natural resources into jobs and foreign earnings. The island's manufacturing base is small but varied by Eastern Caribbean standards, with local firms producing rum, beer, bottled drinks, packaging, plastics, garments, coconut products and food items, some of them exported across the region. Soap made from coconut oil and local botanicals sits naturally in that lineage, and value-added products such as cocoa goods and rum have long been identified as areas where linkages offer room to grow.

Tourism gives these producers a ready-made audience. Visitors on holidays to St Lucia encounter the island's handmade soaps, coconut oil and herbal teas in small shops and spa treatments, products rooted in the same local knowledge the training aims to professionalise. Farmers supply restaurants, fishermen supply kitchens and artists sell to guests, so a stronger manufacturing and craft sector feeds directly into the visitor experience rather than competing with it.

Travellers who want to see the ingredients at their source have plenty of options beyond the beach. The range of things to do in St Lucia includes rum distilleries in St Lucia such as those of Saint Lucia Distillers, whose tours are among the most enjoyable ways to watch local manufacturing at work, as well as cocoa and chocolate in St Lucia, where estate visits connect the story of the land to the finished product. The same farm-to-table logic that visitors taste in local kitchens is now being applied to skincare and soap.

The setting matters too. Beyond the beaches in St Lucia and the volcanic spires of the Pitons, which anchor a UNESCO World Heritage Site near Soufrière, the island has built its reputation on natural beauty, and its small producers trade on that identity. Whether arriving on flights to St Lucia directly or combining the island with St Lucia cruises, visitors increasingly want goods with a genuine local story, which is exactly what the Castries producers are being helped to certify and sell.

Accommodation operators are also part of the chain. Guests staying in all-inclusive resorts in St Lucia, boutique hotels in St Lucia or private villas in St Lucia encounter Creole spa treatments and natural products in-house, giving small cosmetic makers a route to market without ever shipping a single export consignment. Weddings in St Lucia and honeymoon in St Lucia bookings add further demand for spa and gifting products, particularly in the quieter shoulder months that fall outside the best time to visit St Lucia for peak sunshine.

For now, the immediate news is the training itself and what follows it. The Castries producers will take their new skills into the marketplace as the Commonwealth Trade Portal goes live in November, and the Saint Lucia Bureau of Standards has signalled its continued role in helping producers achieve certification. If the soap sector can convert heritage into steady exports, it will be one of the quieter but more telling wins for small business on the island.