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A Piece of T&T History - Ernest Canning

Ernest Hugh Canning was born in 1878 in Surrey, England. When he came to Trinidad as a young man some time between 1901 and 1903 – the exact date is not certain – he had already gathered work experience as a shop clerk.

Giving up his career in Croydon, “wanderlust” had gripped Canning, and he boarded a ship to Trinidad to see where the colonial goods he was so accustomed to seeing in England came from.

He was employed by the Stephens brothers in Port of Spain, who had their large groceries and dry goods store, Stephens & Scott Limited, at 10 Frederick Street. Stephens was one of the largest department stores in Port of Spain, and Canning was employed in the groceries section. It was a time of counter service, with clerks standing behind a counter, the customers in front of them, and goods neatly stacked in long, high shelves behind them.

Trinidad, and Port of Spain in particular, in those days was benefiting from the cocoa boom. Frederick Street was dominated by large stores, such as Bonanza, owned by John and Robert Smith; Davidson and Todd, which sold furniture and hardware; Ribeiro & Co., which dealt in foodstuffs; and Millers, a dry goods store. The shop fronts were outfitted with large plate glass windows – window-shopping was then still a Saturday afternoon pastime – and along the first floor ran cast iron balustrades shading the sidewalks.

“This was where the local elite shopped, the gloved and behatted ladies greeting each other politely, the gentlemen doffing their hats,” writes Dr. Gillian Royes in Business is Good.

Grocery shopping was then completely different from today. Long-distance orders from the country came to Ernest Canning as he worked in the grocery department of Stephens, and often even the payment was long distance: Stephens gave credit to the planters’ families until the harvest came in. Most businesses were family run, and much like on the plantations, the employees became more or less part of that extended family.

By 1912, Canning was ready to move on from Stephens to form his own company. The cocoa boom was ebbing, and internal difficulties at Stephens edged Canning to quit. With financial backing from another businessman, George Huggins, Canning opened his own grocery store at 25 Frederick Street, at the corner of Queen Street, which became known as “Canning’s corner”. His store was so successful that a few years later Stephens closed their grocery department.

“Goods were displayed in modern glass cases, cosmetics and sweets at the front of the store and food further back,” writes Dr. Royes. “Through large plate glass windows these were clearly visible from the street.”

Canning’s had a delivery service for rural areas and even to Tobago. In the back of the store, a small bottling operation was underway. It was the beginning of Canning’s soft drinks: eight to ten flavours, and the bottles had marble stoppers. Canning’s was unique among stores in Port of Spain in that it specialised in grocery items. This was a novelty in Trinidad, which afforded Canning to stock up with more grocery items than any other store – and the customers were pleased!

Canning was much respected by his hard-working staff. Because he had a limp, he earned himself the nickname “The Hopper”. His spontaneous generosity to his staff and even to children from the street endeared him to the people who worked for him.

In 1917, his business was well established. Canning was 39 when he married Audrey Fahey, who was 10 years younger. Audrey had been working with Tom Boyd on Broadway, and being much ahead of her time, she was a businesswoman in her own right. The couple moved to 10 Queen’s Park West, and they had two daughters, Grace and Jean.

In 1920, Canning’s opened a second store in San Fernando. The plantation economy was dwindling, and the granting of credit to the agricultural sector by the stores in Port of Spain became more and more risky. “The purpose of this store was to improve the cash flow that would be generated by the oilfield workers and staff,” writes Dr. Royes. Canning, the born entrepreneur, sought out new markets while others contracted. A year later, Ernest Canning took a decisive step in growing his business: he moved away from being an owner-operator business and formed a limited liability company with a board of directors from outside the family.

In 1929 Canning & Co went into the ice cream business and the following year a baking company was established. “Canning’s Ice Cream” and “Holsum Bread” became household brand names in Trinidad.

In 1931, the store at Canning’s corner was renovated and connected with the property next door on Queen Street. Dr. Royes writes: “It was here, on the ground floor of the Queen Street building, that the Canning’s tea room was to bring delight to many citizens of Port of Spain, providing lunches for businessmen, ice cream sodas for children, and a social centre for teenagers.”

In 1933, Canning purchased the Ice House grocery at the corner of Abercromby Street and Marine Square (now Independence Square). He named this company Fernandez (1933) Limited, and the grocery became the Fernandez (1933) grocery. This was later on to be the location of the first Hi-Lo store.

In the mid-thirties, Canning was regarded as the biggest and most modern provisioner in Trinidad and Tobago. But the idea of self-service supermarkets was still in the future – to do grocery shopping, one placed one’s order via the telephone, and the clerks at Canning would assemble the order and deliver it to your house.

“Ernest Canning was a man who enjoyed life, and was a happy man at home,” writes Dr. Royes. “In 1938, he walked his elder daughter Grace up the aisle to give her hand in marriage to a handsome American man, Gordon Graves New.”

New started working in his father-in-law’s business in 1941, which by then employed more than 850 people. It was the time of the Second World War, and the American bases at Chaguaramas and Wallerfield had by then been set up. The soldiers wanted to drink Coca-Cola, and New arranged for Canning’s to get the bottling concession for the American soft drink, then a novelty in Trinidad and Tobago.

Ernest Canning was ailing. His twentieth annual general meeting in 1942 was to be his last, and on 30th September 1942 the great entrepreneurial man died of a stroke.

He left the business in capable hands, however. Gordon New came up with an innovative idea. Having shopped in self-service supermarkets in the United States on visits home, he decided to introduce this revolutionary shopping concept in Trinidad. In 1950, the Fernandez (1933) grocery was converted into a “cash-and-carry” facility. The first Hi-Lo opened its doors to the public on 1st June 1950.

“With no parking lot on Marine Square, the management wondered if it would survive,” writes Dr. Royes. “It was known that the middle and upper classes were hostile to the idea of converting their credit accounts to cash, and society ladies were heard expressing the opinion that they would never be seen dead pushing ‘one of those breadcarts’.”

Nonetheless, the experiment proved to be highly popular and the store was able to support itself. Canning’s daughters became involved in the company, and together with New propagated the view that in spite of declining profits of the overall group Hi-Lo needed a more modern face and a more convenient appearance.

Three years later, in 1953, the “youth” faction in the company prevailed, and Canning’s corner was converted into a Hi-Lo store. The credit system was shut down. It was a complete success. The concept of going into a store, browsing in the aisles, actually touching and choosing packaged food was very appealing to the public.

Over the next 47 years, to the present day, Hi-Lo expanded into a supermarket chain with a nationwide network. Always innovative and up-to-date with overseas developments, the supermarket shaped shopping patterns in Trinidad. Hi-Lo stores were opened as far away as in Jamaica, making Canning’s a truly international family company.

After independence, it was not always easy for the firm. Political hurdles like price control and import restrictions were counter-productive in the retail sector, and the growing union movement had to be dealt with. But the family-oriented company managed and expanded, purchasing a poultry processing plant called Fine Foods. In 1970, Canning’s went public and continued to operate at a time when the country went through many political and social changes.

In 1975, Canning’s merged with Neal & Massy Holdings Limited. In the years to follow, misfortunes hit the Canning’s group. Government restrictions on the import of hatching eggs, chicken feed and chemicals brought the chicken processing plant to a virtual stop. Several major fires affected operations in the years to follow.

It was in the 1990s that the name Canning’s finally vanished from the local business world. The dairy, the chicken processing plant and the soft drinks division were closed. The Canning’s line of soft drinks, including the brand name, was sold to Coca-Cola. Hi-Lo that was the sole “survivor” of the Canning’s group of companies, continuing where Ernest Canning started from almost a century ago: in groceries.

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