Everything Fresh cushions hotel-sector blow with retail pivot
Published:Saturday | April 4, 2026 | 10:57 PM
Everything Fresh Limited’s diversification beyond hospitality has helped soften the impact of some hotel shutdowns after Hurricane Melissa.
Over time, the company has expanded from mainly supplying hotels to also serving retail stores and supermarkets.
“Definitely the rebalancing of the portfolio has redounded to our benefit,” Managing Director Courtney Pullen said in an interview with the Financial Gleaner. “Even the little fallout that we suffered post-Melissa was not enough to knock us into our loss position.”
Write-offs during the year totaled $7.0 million compared to $11.6 million a year earlier. The company absorbed these costs and operational disruptions without slipping back into red ink. The Junior Market–listed company reported revenues of $4.17 billion, representing a 13 per cent increase over the $3.68 billion earned in 2024, as demand strengthened across Jamaica and The Bahamas. Net profit climbed 33 per cent to $42.8 million for shareholders, reflecting stronger operating performance despite margin pressures and higher finance costs.
Pullen pointed to the pipeline of additional hotel room openings across Jamaica over the short to medium term, which should lift volumes in fresh, frozen, and processed foods.
“Certainly with the amount of new hotel rooms that are projected to open in the short to medium term … it’s probably going to be pretty good,” he said, underscoring expectations that capacity added in 2024 and 2025 will begin to pay fuller dividends.
During the year, its higher volumes and expanded retail reach was, however, partly offset by a contraction in gross margin to 20.2 per cent from 21.4 per cent. Management noted that cost of sales increased in line with expanded activity, while administrative expenses rose more moderately, suggesting improved cost discipline as scale increases.
A critical pillar of the rebalancing effort has been logistics and storage optimisation, with Bog Walk in St Catherine now serving as the company’s main cold and dry storage hub. The shift has meaningfully altered the group’s cost structure.
“We are moving a lot more through the Bog Walk facility, which is more central to our hotel clients, so we definitely have some savings there,” Pullen said, explaining that shorter delivery routes reduced fuel usage and eliminated the need for additional trucks in Jamaica. Previously, dispatches were concentrated around Marcus Garvey Drive in Kingston, requiring longer hauls to resort areas.
The expanded Bog Walk facility, now the primary dispatch point for hotel clients islandwide, supported revenue growth but also fed through to the profit-and-loss statement in the form of higher depreciation, utilities, and staffing costs associated with increased cold-storage capacity. While these expenses weighed on margins in the short term, management views them as necessary investments to defend and grow market share.
Cash flow closed the year at $100 million down from $170 million a year earlier. The reduction in cash came with improved operational management but also higher finance costs.
Management argued that the cash outflow was largely timing-related rather than structural. Everything Fresh is worth $532 million in capital to December up from $492 million a year earlier.