Buoyed by the success of its exploits in the plantain chips industry, the highly successful company, Jamaica Producers Group, has announced that it is pushing its investment envelope further by pumping J$100 million into the creation of a 50-hectare plantain farm adjoining its existing banana and pineapple growing operations in the country’s St. Mary Parish.
The initiative is part of a plan, according to company CEO Jeffrey Hall, which will begin with the securing of markets for fresh plantains after which the company will “expand into value-added products, such as pre-peeled, ready-to-cook plantains,” according to a Gleaner report.
The Jamaica Producers Group has already realised success with its plantain chips manufactured in the Dominican Republic under its St. Mary’s brand. Additionally, it has established a name for itself with its bananas, pineapples and coconuts.
Some of its produce have been channeled into production of its St. Mary’s brand of snack foods which include breadfruit chips, cassava, banana chips, ripe and green plantain chips and plantain strips, among others.
The Jamaica Producers Group has used its largely fruits and vegetables base to create the kinds agricultural and agro-processing enterprises that have long eluded Guyana, the latter’s distinct advantage in land availability and the size of its agricultural sector notwithstanding. The differing levels of entrepreneurial success realised by those sectors in the two CARICOM countries would appear to repose in significantly higher levels of private sector investment by Jamaican enterprises in the agriculture and agro-processing sector, and more particularly the markedly higher levels of success which Jamaica has realised in ensuring that it products reach both regional and international markets and secure high levels of acceptance in those markets. Nor has the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic slowed the growth of the Jamaican agriculture and agro – processing conglomerate, one of its more recent investments being the acquisition of a 50 per cent stake in a shipping line – Geest Line Limited – which was announced recently.
