Rainforest Seafoods to triple output with new processing plant
Published:Friday | July 16, 2010 | 12:00 AM
Avia Collinder, Business Writer
Brian Jardim's Rain-forest Seafoods Limited is transforming its distribution centre in Kingston into a full-fledged processing plant that is expected to almost triple output.
Jardim is investing US$5 million (J$430m) in the expansion.
The company, which sells some 250 varieties of seafood in Jamaica and nine other Caribbean countries, is looking to open the new facility at its 67 Slipe Road location by the end of August.
The processing plant will be on three acres of land Jardim bought in 2009 in preparation for the move.
The new processing centre, Jardim said, will increase Rainforest's processing capacity by 150 per cent and freezer capacity by 200 per cent, tripling the ability of the company to produce frozen, fresh and other packaged products.
Company revenues, already up 20 per cent for the first six months of this year over the first half of 2009, are expected to be further boosted by the expansion. But 2009 was not a particularly good year for the firm, Jardim indicated, noting that sales were flat in the first non-growth year for the business.
The current expansion is being financed by a 10-year loan from First Global Bank.
"It will take some time before we see a profit," Jardim told the Financial Gleaner.
He has 100 per cent ownership in Rainforest.
The August commissioning will involve processing seafood through dry- or modified-atmosphere packaging, with the removal of air to increase texture and taste in the products.
Wet processing of fresh products such as fillet and whole fish, marinated and smoked shrimp, rum-smoked marlin and salmon, as well as several coffee-flavoured products, is slated for a December start.
But Jardim intends to take Rainforest beyond the packaging of raw seafood. The plant will also produce microwavable and other ready-to-eat meals and soups for greater value-added.
The Government-run Scientific Research Council is said to be advising the company on enhancing the products' shelf life.
"Seafood is one of the easiest proteins to spoil," Jardim said.
Safety certification
He added that the plant will be fully Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP)-certified, a move which will enable the company to sell its products overseas.
HACCP is the system of food and other products' safety certification used by the US Food and Drug Administration and US Department of Agriculture.
The equipping of the facility, which already operates as a distribution centre, will include providing full-power generation/backup capacity and the digging of a water well on the property.
When fully operational, the current staff of 50 at Slipe Road will be joined by another 70 who will concentrate on the wet-processing operations. Another 40 workers are based in Montego Bay, where only dry processing is done.
With a fleet of 24 freezer trucks, the company delivers seafood to hotels, wholesalers and supermarkets islandwide.
Jardim
For supplies, Jardim is looking to local fish farms and other fishermen.
The company is also looking to add lobster, conch, king fish and all seasonal seafoods to its range of products as they become available.
Jardim, who once worked with his father Gordon 'Butch' Stewart's Sandals Resorts chain, said the hotel market in Jamaica and elsewhere in the Caribbean, is always open to more food supplies of good and consistent quality.
Most of the seafood now packaged by Rainforest is imported from other countries, including Chile and Brazil.
However, according to Jardim, his new wet-processing facility, will be a point of departure from this model, opening another market for local fish farmers.
Rainforest Seafoods also sells its products in Trinidad and Tobago, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Barbados, the Cayman Islands, St Lucia, among other Caribbean locations.
Exports account for 25 per cent of sales.
Jardim now plans to grow this business in 2011, and beyond, to include markets in the United States and Europe.
In addition to owning and being managing director of Rainforest Seafoods, Jardim, who branched out into business in 1995, is also shareholder and chief executive officer of Island Entertainment Brands and Margaritaville Caribbean.