SOARING PRODUCTION has pushed the Blue Mountain Coffee Cooperative in Cedar Valley, St. Thomas, to build a new 464.5 sq. metres (5,000 sq ft) storage facility, which has the capacity to hold some 60,000 boxes of coffee beans.
Completed at a cost of some $3.5 million, the building was officially opened last Monday at the Cooperative's annual general meeting held at the Moy Hall Coffee Factory. Over 90 coffee farmers and residents from coffee-producing districts attended the meeting.
Included in the new structure are five dehumidifiers to ensure that the moisture content in the coffee beans remains at a constant level. Construction work started in early November last year and was completed in January 2004.
Manager of the Blue Mountain Coffee Cooperative, O'Neil Blake, said that the construction of the facility was necessary because of the high levels of production.
"We want to centralise storage and to ensure that we have the appropriate kind of infrastructure to store and protect the produce," he said, adding that during this year the drying space at the factory would be expanded to some 743.2 sq. metres (8,000 sq ft.).
Mr. Blake said there were also plans to implement a bio-digester project, which would use the waste products at the Cooperative to generate electricity for operations at the factory. He disclosed that the Cooperative had introduced a second coffee brand, called "Penlyne Castle," to market its coffee in Europe, United States and Japan.
The Cooperative Manager said that farmers at Penlyne Castle, a district in St. Thomas noted for producing a high quality of coffee beans, produced some 12,000 boxes each year.
According to Mr. Blake, the Cooperative now had contractual arrangements to supply coffee to two large companies in Japan, Toyota and Ataka.
"Presently marketing is not a problem and it is very demanding to fulfill these commitments," he said.
To meet shipping deadlines, Mr. Blake said that the Cooperative recently introduced a night shift at the factory starting from 5:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. and employs over 90 persons on each shift.
He noted that the production of coffee had moved from 8,000 boxes in 1998 to 44,000 boxes at present.
A total of 3,000 farmers supply cherry coffee to the factory moving from 200 in 1998, Mr. Blake added.
