Captain Fedna Stoll is the inventor of a unique method of food preservation that makes it possible for the first time to enjoy flavors of tropical fruits and vegetables all year round. The distinction of Stoll technology is its 100% natural process and results, without additives and without preservatives. Pure, natural melon powder, orange powder, pineapple powder, banana powder, to name a few, are among Fedna Stoll’s 120+ TropiTaste recipe creations. Among the highlights of Stoll’s creations is a unique line of tropical fruit flavored instant cereals that require no cooking at all – simply add water or milk, hot, warm or cold, and all the zest of flavors will emerge. of tropical fruits for a pleasant enjoyment to the palate.
The Captain, as he is known and called by his friends and associates, was a retired international sea captain who was born in the Essequibo region of British Guiana (now Guiana). Called the ‘Cinderella’ county of Guyana, this area is home to the world famous Kaiteur Falls, prized Lake Tapakuma, which boasts the world’s largest collection of orchids, astonishing natural beauty, as well as vast mineral resources and, of course, , the Caribbean’s tastiest pineapple, the delicious ‘sugarloaf’ variety found in Lake Mainstay.
The second child in a family of six, little Fedna grew up on a sprawling 300-acre coconut farm owned by his family, where a plethora of fruits and vegetables grew almost effortlessly in the humus-rich soil.
At 15, like four generations of male ancestors, young Fedna took to sea. At 18, he was captain of his own ship and crew, a profession he pursued for the next forty years, and with which he supported his family and amassed his fortune in Caribbean waters and seas. international.
After retirement, Stoll devoted his intellectual powers, willpower, creative energies and financial savings to food preservation, a persistent passion that first took root during his youth on the family’s coconut farm. Quietly, with each passing decade of his life as an adult sailor, this passion grew more intense and obsessive as he witnessed it firsthand, and was sometimes the one who gave the order to crew members to dump farm tonnage and produce. food in the Caribbean and the Atlantic. ocean simply because of the saturation or abundance of the market and the absence of conservation methods. Over the years, however, it seemed unfathomable and incomprehensible that in this fragile ‘loving’ land, while millions of people were starving for a morsel of food elsewhere, on the other side of the world, millions of thousands of tons of precious food was systematically discarded in a disproportionate way to the fish and the waves in the senseless seas.
So it was that, in 1984, at the end of the late Forbes Burnham’s unsuccessful ‘feed, house and clothe the nation’ socialist campaign, the retired Captain’s tireless work began in dark seriousness following his voluntary remigration to Guyana from his adopted homeland. , Barbados. Having traversed the world and garnered countless experiences, the Captain was once again close to his childhood roots in the Charity-Pomeroon area of Essequibo.
Seven years passed, amid routine taunts from acquaintances and villagers who saw him as wacko and eccentric, before the Captain emerged from the woods, victorious. Like Edison, Stoll persistently pursued his goal: to be the first man in modern history to achieve 100% conservation without the use of or reliance on additives, sugars, sulfites, or chemicals. At the end of his seven-year ordeal, he was half a million dollars poorer, but he had mastered the scientific art of holistic preservation.
In his rural retreat and experimental station at the edge of the forest, the Captain deliberately left no trace of his labyrinthine path to discovery. Even the principles he had discovered and the prototypes of earlier machines were discarded or dismantled, shielded from the prying gaze of ungrateful eyes. Instead, he now chose to present his knowledge and discovery single-handedly in return for recognition, the happiness and well-being of others, and at least a return on his investment.
But his descent from the top of the mountain with the good news did not prove to be an easy road either. The leap from discovery to recognition and success would prove in some ways more daunting than the previous decade of patient and determined struggle.
Back in the sprawling capital of Georgetown, where national power is still grasped and greedily traded to this day, and policies and decisions are made and administered in rarefied bureaucratic chambers far removed from rural rhyme, reason solid and reality, the Captain was faced with the bitterest pill he had yet to swallow. The new food laws, passed unbeknownst to most in 1971, began to be strictly implemented around 1987. As the Captain vividly puts it, “From then to this day, even the ‘true’ Casareep Amerindian has been outlawed officially in Guyana. Instead, the burnt sugar has been officially blessed, christened and sold at home and abroad as ‘authentic old-tyme Guyanese casareep’. It’s ridiculous, but true.”
Thus, the obvious platform for his invention, in his homeland, and the prospects for solving the national agricultural problem of harnessing the fertile wealth of the land and profiting so easily from the huge post-harvest losses were utterly shattered. The ironic tragedy is that this past trend has continued intact in the present. As late as 1997, although the heart of his support base was in the agricultural belt of Guyana, even the late Dr. Cheddi Jagan, former President of Guyana, died without making any changes to the draconian laws implemented during a previous socialist government.
Deeply disappointed, the Captain has since adopted an outspoken and reluctant style toward bureaucrats and politicians whose goals he unflatteringly says are just “control, votes, and re-election.” the means to shape their own destiny and happiness”.
So from 1991, like a chameleon, Stoll changed to adapt to the ‘new era’. He became the organic juice maker and conservationist working on local herbs and medicines. From his little organic juice shop in Georgetown, under the counter, he sold 100% natural dehydrated pumpkin seeds packed with potency for prostate disease; mangrove bark powder tea for diabetes; and even wafer-thin dried aloes. To this day, his private clients still include several prominent city doctors, whose allopathic medicines dispensed to others are not good enough for them or other clients in North America.
Outwardly, in recent years, it has seemed to those few who knew of his crowning achievement and seminal discovery that the Captain had set aside his life’s passion. But, in fact, El Capitan appeared selectively at progressive scientific meetings, on the local NGO circuit, and also at international regional conferences on dehydration and solar energy. Of course, Stoll, being a man of few words, invariably showed up with the cherished emblems of his achievement, the actual products others only talked about: mango powder, pineapple chips, banana chips, papaya powder, breadfruit and no salt. dried fish, to name a few. For him it was never about monographs and speeches or hypotheses and theories. As is often the case at such events, much to the bewilderment of their regional and international scientific dehydration and preservation counterparts, Stoll’s entire product line is astonishingly 100% natural.
Today, Captain Fedna Stoll, the dark boy from Essequibo who finally got sick and tired of watching the massive elimination of post-harvest agricultural bounty in the Caribbean, is the president of TropiTaste International Inc. and the flagship carrier of the Stoll Thermo-Solar . Dehydration system and technology. Over the past year, a subsidiary company has engaged Surland NV, the Surinamese banana exporter, in developing a HACCP food processing business to produce value-added banana products and a line of instant cereals, all 100% natural.
According to Jacques Drielsma, managing director of Surland, Stoll’s invention offers the domestic company a value-added production solution to its persistent problems with bananas that it cannot export to European markets. Recent estimates have placed Surland’s non-exported bananas at up to 60% of the company’s total output.
For decades or perhaps even centuries to come, the West Indies and the broader Americas will remember Fedna Stoll as the very George Washington Carver of the Caribbean. In thoughtful words that probe closely to the heart and core of the environmental problems facing our fragile planet on the threshold of the 21st century, the Captain writes: “We are looking for the golden yellow metal buried in the earth’s interior, while millions tons of green gold is wasted daily on the earth’s surface. It’s strange,” he continues, “to see our leaders and people openly flirting with ecological disaster despite this discovery that has been made in the Guianas.”
With serene assurance, the inventive genius lucidly declares: “We don’t need to plant more acres. We are already wasting more than 50% of what we produce. First, let’s begin to fully and efficiently use what the Earth man-made helps produce.” and the bounty of the ‘green gold’ that grows all around us, especially in the paradise of the Guianas and the Caribbean.”
