THE GLEANER, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2025 | www.jamaica-gleaner.com | A10 AC10 Tribute to MR SING SLUN CHIN, CD I WISH to express my deepest condolences to rst Sing’s grandchildren, Annalisa, Julian, Gabrielle, Courtney, Sebastian, Emily and baby Mila. I know that losing your Grandpa is one of the hardest moments in your life, but remember that he will always be with you and his lessons he taught you will carry you very far in life. You all have him in you in some way. To his four children, Michelle, Craig, Stacy and Nicholas, and their spouses, my heartfelt sympathies as well and, as he says in his book in the opening chapter and I quote, “Not a day goes by when I don’t want to teach you guys something new, show you a different point of view, or help shape you into the outstanding human beings you have all become”. You have all been taught by the master and today I want to speak about what an enlightened man Sing Slun Chin was and a man that I can say was a true friend Let me go back to the beginning when I rst met and really got to know Sing. In the mid to late 1990s, my uncle Sam, then chairman of Wisynco, was getting ready to retire and Sing was one of his best friends, so much so that after Sam passed, Sing put a picture of him in the office. So as many of you who knew Sam know, his love was of the outdoors and before he started the goat farm in Treasure Beach, he rented a house in Black River from Terry Lyn who owned the bakery there. He also became very close to her brother Eugene and his sidekick Elliot. If anyone wanted to nd this team of men on most weekends, they would be in Black River. Eugene was a fantastic cook and every weekend, especially during the shooting season, we would be there where he would be cooking up a storm. The crew almost always had Sing and Nicholas, who was a young teenager then. One Friday night, Andrew and I went to Black River with George Hugh and Metry Seaga. Eugene cooked a gourmet dinner which usually included some corned sh he made himself from Snook caught right in the Black River. Everyone was nishing up sitting in the yard relaxing after dinner which that night included mutton with lime leaf as a joke. Sing and my uncle later in the evening, when a yard dog walked through the house, said shoo mutton. But let me tell you about Sing and why he was such an enlightened man and leader. His career started at the tender age of 15 after he dropped out of high school and started working for Joseph’s at Orange Street; funnily he had also applied to work at Mahfood and Sons at Harbour Street which is where Sam would have already been working alongside his brothers in 1963, as their father had died the year before. Sing had a drive to be independent and create… a true enlightened visionary. He worked for Joseph’s for four years then went to work for Hand Arnold and nally, the last company he worked for was Geddes Grant as a salesman where he got to know the Lyns who owned the store in Havendale that he would eventually buy at the age of 24 years old... in 1971. Imagine being married with two children and a mortgage and trying to nd the money to buy a business. Sing was an enlightened and bold visionary. That move started him on his retail journey from the small shop at Mannings Hill Road. Alongside his brother Fong, in 1974, they started SuperValu at Mannings Hill Road to years later, building the largest retail empire in Jamaica. With close to 30 total retail businesses today, Sing has created one of the best-run retail business empires in Jamaica. He was an enlightened visionary. In 1999 Sing, Gladdy, Ken and Docky came to Wisynco. Sing was driving a white Ford F150, I recall, and the four of them were piled into it. They had just acquired Welcome Supermarket from the Lees at Old Hope Road and were about to nalise the purchase of Shoppers Fair’s seven stores. They came to Wisynco to see how we could assist them. They had just left another distribution company where they were not treated the way they had expected, then they arrived at our White Marl location where Sam, Joe and Andrew and I were. They started with seven stores; today they have 22 and ve more in the works. Sing had his dream team: they are Camille Lim Sang, William Reid, and Pat Bravo... together they worked assiduously to build each new store and upgrade the ones that needed it. Sing was an enlightened competitor and customer. Stacy tells the story of Don Wehby calling him for retail advice and he happily shared with him anything he needed to know when Grace were expanding Hi Lo. Sing knew that Progressive and Shoppers Fair would always have enough business and, as he told Stacy, “There’s more than enough to go around”. His relationships with the main distributors, banks, contractors, etc, allowed the group to always have an edge. In his book, he tells the story of how Bill Clarke, then heading Scotiabank, didn’t ask any questions when they were buying the Shoppers Fair business and lent them the money. In the early days of Shoppers Fair, lunches were at Northside every Thursday. Included in those lunches would be Bill Clarke, then when he left Scotia, it was Barry Chisholm, Warrington (Flash) Williams, Halcott Holness and myself. With Ken, Gladdy, Sing and Docky, the food was always fantastic and Daniel, who owned the restaurant then, always took good care of us. There was always an eating contest between Hal and Flash, but Flash was the steady one and would still be eating when we were all nished. I then recall Sing telling me one day that he had bought the land at Constant Spring Road from Howard Mackenzie, the adjoining piece he bought from his sister, and that location is where today stands Kingston’s premier supermarket in Fresh Foods. He took his sweet time building that store. I remember the days going to his site office in the container and he had a big display table with all of the projects he was working on for Progressive; their work always took precedence. Fresh Foods took almost 10 years to build and I remember all the time people calling me and asking if Sing had run out of money. But I knew he was doing it in his own time and that he wanted to ensure that his partners in Progressive got the focus for their businesses that they were due. Fresh Foods opened during COVID and, in the short time the store has been open, it has become one of the best supermarkets in Jamaica. Sing would love to sit at the front of the store and chat to every customer coming in… he was an enlightened businessman Before he passed, he was working on ve major projects to include Drax Hall, the New Westgate refurbish, Harbour View refurbish, Negril and Greater Portmore refurbish. The workload that he left is enough for an entire team for the next few years, and I know that in Stacy and Craig will manage, along with the dream team. Ken was a huge loss to the entire group but moreso to Sing, and he says so in the book. They were both very much the glue that held the group together in the early days and two true visionaries. I remember the late 1990s at Northside Plaza as I saw these men who were all similar in age to my parents talking about expansion, growing, led by Ken and Sing with the desire to keep investing and growing. I used to say to them all the time that they needed to start bringing the younger generation into the meetings and business in order to plan for proper succession. Ken passed in 2011 and it seemed as if that was the catalyst that got the younger generation into the business. Bruce, Laura, Craig, Tim and now Stacy, as the reins are being handed over to you with Progressive, be enlightened, continue to be visionary. Sing was an enlightened leader and if you ever have a chance to speak with any of the team members of any of his businesses they were treated like family. The most important quote from Sing’s book that I want to read today is this: “When Michelle was born, instilled in me was a belief that I have lived by since the moment I rst held her in my arms: no matter what lay ahead, no matter what my accomplishments, being a father was going to be my most important job and the deepest source of pride and joy in my life” May his soul rest in peace and perpetual light shine upon him. WILLIAM MAHFOOD AN ENLIGHTENED VISIONARY Sing was an enlightened leader and if you ever have a chance to speak with any of the team members of any of his businesses they were treated like family. William Mahfood, chairman of the Wisynco Group
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