By Lavern Clarke, Staff reporter
Jardin
AFTER six years, Brian Jardin has finally made it into the capital having set up a seventh outlet of his seafood company on Half-Way Tree Road over two weeks ago.
"It took me six years to get to Kingston," said Jardin.
Headquartered in Montego Bay, Rainforest Seafoods distributes on a wholesale level to hotels, supermarkets, and institutions, but the company also packages its products under its own label which it markets locally from its own storefront and at consumer outlets islandwide.
Its customers also include Margaritaville, which is co-owned by Jardin and Ian Dear.
The Kingston operation, which is ensconced on some 10,000 square feet of leased space, is a $8-10 million investment for Jardin, who sees Kingston as strategic in building up market share. Most of the start up investment went into refurbishing, equipping and stocking the new depot.
The company has a presence in the main town centres of Jamaica - including Mandeville, Savanna-la-Mar, and Ocho Rios.
Some of its stock of shrimp, lobster, squid, different varieties of fish, and conch is sourced locally, but a good portion of Rainforest's produce is imported from countries within CARICOM, said Jardin.
Its packaged product is handled mostly by processors across the Caribbean under the Rainforest label, but the MoBay operation also has a small processing and packaging plant.
Its products are sold only in Jamaica.
Formerly, Rainforest's Kingston market was served by freezer trucks from its fleet of 14, which did daily deliveries to the capital. Now the Kingston operation offers Rainforest the base from which to service an even wider population in growing Portmore and other parts of St. Catherine, as well as other sections of the island's eastern belt, and is in a better location to fill daily orders as they come in.
In the six years that the seafood distributorship has been operational, Jardin says he has invested some $100 million in building up the company, and now has over 100 people on his payroll. He has been backed over the years by the Melhado's Manufacturers Merchant Bank, and now by the merged Manufacturers-Sigma Merchant Bank.
"We work with lines of credit from our processors, primarily through Manufacturers-Sigma," the seafood distributor said. "Manufacturers has been our life-blood. They have financed all our inventories."
Montego Bay which is 25,000 square feet site, remains the largest side of the operation.
Jardin says the company is wholly his. He retains the title of managing director, but has a general manager, Madge Noble, who oversees the daily islandwide operations. Each of the seven outlets is run by a depot manager.
"With Kingston opening, Rainforest is pretty complete in Jamaica," he said, in reference to the setting up of depots. "We would love to take it to the wider Caribbean, but that's going to take some studying" of the market.
Jardin says his operation as the only meat distributor that specialises in seafood only. Based on that claim, he says his operation is the largest of its kind even when compared to the business that a Grace Kennedy and National Meats does in seafood sales.
The assessment, he said, is based not on any industry data, but on feedback from his sales team and customers. Jardin was reluctant to discuss sales performance, noting only that a typical container load is 25 tonnes, and that he sold tens of tonnes of seafood weekly.
The company does its best business when tourism is strong, since the hotels buys much of its "premium" stock, says Jardin. Of the five product lines, the 85 varieties of fish is his largest volume seller and income earner, not surprisingly since the seafood supply market is seasonal and products like conch, squid and lobster can only be reaped at specific times of the year. Rainforest is the only of Jardin's companies to have a base in Kingston. His other interests include the Movie Store in Montego Bay, a video rental operation, and Margaritaville now established in five locations on the north coast.
Before he set up Rainforest, Jardin had developed expertise in distribution across the Caribbean as a middleman.
"I used to broker products through the Caribbean," he said.
