(Jamaica Gleaner) The Jamaica Broilers Group Limited, JBG, says most of its growth in the immediate future will come from the United States segment of its business, where it expanded its chicken plant to produce 700,000 chickens per week.
The company disclosed that it will be looking to double its production over the next three to five years.
“I am not able to disclose at this point what that capital expenditure would look like … [but] I think we will be able to double our production. I’m looking at over the next three, four, five years, we’re looking at moving sales up by 100 per cent,” JBG Chairman Robert Levy said at the company’s annual general meeting held online.
Jamaica Broilers runs two vertically integrated poultry operations based in Jamaica and the United States.
For the year ending April 27, 2024, the Jamaican operations had revenue totalling $59.7 billion, a one per cent increase over the prior year’s $59 billion, while revenue for the US operations totalled $38.8 billion, a movement of two per cent up from $38.0 billion the year prior. Net profit for the Jamaica operations segment rose by nine per cent, from $7.6 billion to $8.3 billion, while net profit for the US operations segment was up 55 per cent, from $3.8 billion to $5.9 billion.
However, there was a 13 per cent dip in the group’s net profit for the July first quarter: profit was $1.1 billion, compared to $1.2 billion achieved in the corresponding quarter of the previous year.
Group revenues for the first quarter amounted to $23.5 billion, a tiny increase above the $23.4 billion achieved in the corresponding quarter of the previous year.
The company said the reduction was mainly driven by the impact of the passage of Hurricane Beryl.
The US operations reported a segment result of $1.2 billion, which is level with last year’s segment results. Total revenue for the US operations showed an increase of four per cent over the corresponding quarter.
Levy described the year ending in April as the best ever for the 65-year-old company, registering revenue of $93 billion as against $91 billion the previous year, and a profit of $6 billion as against $4 billion the previous year.