Worthy Park adding new export markets for rum
Published:Friday | August 5, 2016 | 12:00 AMTameka Gordon
Worthy Park Estate Limited, makers of Rum-Bar Rum, has increased its overseas markets and aims to grow rum sales by some 45 per cent in the next three to five years.
The St Catherine-based company said it posted over $1 billion in rum sales last year.
Its new markets include Denmark, Italy and Hong Kong, which the company entered in the first half of 2016.
Worthy Park Co-managing Director Gordon Clarke said the markets were selected either for "existing demand for products, growth or projected growth in rum category, or markets with a love of Brand Jamaica".
Worthy Park already ships rum to Dominica, The Bahamas, Bermuda and Cayman in the Caribbean, Canada, and the United Kingdom.
The company is finalising plans to enter Greece, France, Germany and the United States, Clarke said.
"Our rum business is growing and there is more growth expected," he said.
Currently, the rum business constitutes about 30 per cent of Worthy Park's turnover, but within a few years, it should be 50 to 75 per cent," the co-manager said via email.
Export sales of Worthy Park's bulk rum has increased some 15 per cent, while its branded rum, Rum-Bar, is up 100 per cent year-on-year, said Clarke, who declined to quote the volumes sold.
At its core, Worthy Park is a sugar producer whose factory is often touted as the most efficient in Jamaica. The company blends rum at its distillery set up in mid-2000. The branded rum was introduced later, in 2007.
The estate comprises 9,000 acres, more than 40 per cent of which is sugar cane cultivation.
The estate mills approximately 210,000 tonnes of cane annually, reaching record production of 247,000 tonnes in 2015.
Its rum products include Rum-Bar White Overproof, Rum-Bar Gold and Rum-Bar Rum Cream.
The company also distributes a line of Rum-Bar vodkas.