Erica James-King, Staff Reporter
WESTERN BUREAU:
AS THE acute shortage of prime beef cuts begins to take its toll on several hotels, the Jamaica Hotel and Tourists Association (JHTA) and importers are pressing the Government to grant a waiver on the duties imposed on beef air-freighted into the island.
This is being urged as an emergency contingency plan to prevent the beef shortage from railroading the winter tourist season.
The JHTA says it will be submitting this demand in writing to the Tourism Ministry early this week, and is also requesting that an urgent meeting be convened between itself and the ministries of Tourism, Agriculture and Finance to address the issue.
At the same time, Dr. Wykeham McNeill, State Minister for Tourism, is giving the assurance that he will be pushing for consultations between the three ministries during the course of this week.
"We expect that within another day or two the beef purveyors will be putting their request for the waiver in writing and send it to us (JHTA)," said Godfrey Dyer, the association's president. He told The Sunday Gleaner that the scarcity of beef was just beginning to take effect in the hospitality sector.
Some hotels were already out of tenderloin and have had to resort to other cuts of beef. "However, I foresee some serious shortages if beef does not reach us soon, in little over a week's time."
The Half Moon Hotel in Montego Bay is reporting that by this week, the shortage will begin to bite.
"Our stock of prime cuts will not carry (last) until another two weeks," said Klaus Frauens-chlager, executive chef at Half Moon Hotel.
Jamaica has turned to Australia as a source of prime beef cuts for the tourist industry after the Government imposed a ban on United States beef on December 24 last year following the outbreak of mad cow disease in the U.S. But those Australian supplies, which would normally come by sea, will take six weeks to reach the island, which is too late to satisfy demands. In contrast, importers point out that if beef is flown into Jamaica from Australia, the journey would take only two days.
Currently, to bring beef by sea into the island attracts 86 per cent duties on the Cost, Insurance and Freight (CIF) of the beef being transported. However, to bring the beef in by air the importer has to fork out freight-charges of US$4 on each pound of beef, in addition to 86 per cent duties on the CIF.
Meanwhile, one major importer, Caribbean Producers Jamaica Limited (CPJ), has two separate container shipment of beef on the way from Australia; with each containing US$140,000 worth of beef (that amounts to US$250,000 after duties are added). However, the first shipment is not expected into the island until early March. CPJ fears that its hotel clients might be in big trouble, before that shipment arrives.
They are leading the charge for the Government to remove the "prohibitive duties" on beef imported by air, explaining that the removal should be viewed as only a temporary answer to the local beef crisis.
"Nobody usually airfreights beef into Jamaica. It's just too costly...but we are in dire need of the waiver as a contingency plan if our chefs are to prevent disruption in the tourist industry," warned Mark Hart, chief executive officer of CPJ. He pointed out that the chefs need beef of the quality that the tourists want but local farmers are not able to meet the demand for those prime cuts.
In its bid to strengthen its case for concessions on airlifted Australian beef, CPJ hosted an Australian beef tasting event on Thursday night at Half Moon Hotel. The importer invited chefs from major hotels, representatives of the JHTA and the Tourism Ministry to taste the samples of beef it had airfreighted to the island from Australia.
The consensus among the group was that the beef was as delicate and succulent as the American beef.
Director of Tourism, Paul Pennicook, is one of those endorsing the quality of the Australian beef, but he is keen to point out that several solutions must be explored urgently before a decision is taken on airfreights of beef from Australian.
He, however, warned that Jamaica should not fool itself into believing that the local meat industry could satisfy the demand from the hotels at this time both in terms of quality and quantity of choice cuts.
Efforts to have a waiver on air-lifted beef come on the heels of an acknowledgement by Agriculture Minister Roger Clarke last week that the country was having trouble sourcing beef from New Zealand, the Dominican Republic and Uruguay. He noted that only a handful of suppliers were able to source beef from Panama, while none was forthcoming from the Dominican Republic, because the country had none to export at this time.
Jamaicans consume roughly 13 million kilogrammes of beef on an annual basis, of which 7.5 million kilogrammes is imported. Most of the imported beef is prime cuts destined for the tourist industry and restaurants.
