Renee Andrews: TT’s Next Big Agripreneur

Founder of Sorvete-tt Renee Andrews
Founder of Sorvete-tt Renee Andrews

TYRELL GITTENS

Sitting in a Brazilian ice-cream café while finishing her internship, Reneé Andrews had an intuition that the café’s warm feeling was something that she would love to experience for the rest of her life. Not only did she love being embraced by the café’s joyous atmosphere, but it was a feeling that she would one day love to share with others. Today, at the age of 25, Andrews is the proud owner of Sorvete-tt, an online ice-cream shop that prides itself in treating customers to unique flavours that uses locally grown ingredients.

With an associate degree in culinary management from the TT Hospitality and Tourism Institute, Andrews was also recently crowned TT’s Next Big Agripreneur” after successfully mastering an eight-week agricultural entrepreneurship challenge hosted by the WhyFarm organisation.

“I always felt some parts of me loved entrepreneurship,” she told WMN as she described her start in the field. “I would volunteer in school to sell at stalls and at Christmas time I would have bake sales.” Noticing the joy that her service would bring to others, Andrews said these initial experiences lead to her entrepreneurial destiny.

Founder of Sorvete-tt Renee Andrews

It would be the unhappiness she felt working two jobs in the “chef life” that would push her to truly take a leap of faith into the field of entrepreneurship. “Stressed about my two jobs that made me unhappy, I decided to do something that brought purpose to my life.”

In that moment she recalled the warm feeling she had in the Brazilian café. “Ice cream brought me joy and I recognised this to be true to other persons.” Recognising what made her and others happy was one part of the task, how to develop it into something with which she could make a living was another.

“I sat and realised that at the snap of a finger you can have food delivered to your home so why not ice cream!” And Sorvete-tt was born. The online-based companies offer a variety of unique flavours including sweet corn, rose wine and even avocado. “I plan to expand the line to other frozen desserts and would like to open up an actual store front,” she said of her plans to take it to the next level.

Founder of Sorvete-tt Renee Andrews

Describing her experience as a woman in the field of entrepreneurship as amazing she said, “Since starting my business I got to realise just how many women entrepreneurs there really are.” This representation of women in the field is important for her as she says, “I work alongside them to build a stronger bond and to showcase that women have a lot of potential in business.” She has also embraced being “young” and “female” as superpowers. “They (people) underestimate me but, in the end, they respect me and support me more than ever.”

She recognises that there are still some challenges to women in the field of entrepreneurship but remains determined to continue pushing the boundaries. “Women in business sometimes really struggle to push into the bigger realm of entrepreneurship.” However, she encourages women to continue blazing trails and making headway. “Everything is not always going to be lined up but continue pushing yourself and making strategic moves. Always love what you do and continue to be passionate about it, this will help with the struggles you will face.” Above all she credits strong faith and determination as the building blocks of success as she notes that, “With God all things are possible.”

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