US$1.2m 'delicious' deal for old Jockey factory
Published:Friday | May 7, 2010 | 12:00 AM
Dionne Rose, Business Reporter
An American company which specialises in the manufacture of food products has struck a deal to invest US$1.2 million to run a cookie- and candy-making business under its Just Delicious brand at the old Jockey International garment factory at Sandy Bay, near Lucea, in Hanover.
The company will be opening its doors next month under the name Sandy Bay Sweets, and will create about 300 jobs, a source, who requested anonymity, said.
The firm is part of the United States (US)-based Madrona Specialty Foods Group, and is said to have been wooed here by Jamaica Trade and Invest (JTI), the Government's trade and investment promotion agency.
Sandy Bay Sweets will sell its cookie and hard-candy products to large US retailers such as Costco.
The Financial Gleaner was told that the company will be leasing the 56,000-square foot Hanover plant, which became vacant after Jockey International closed its last factory and pulled out of Jamaica two years ago, effectively bringing the curtains down on the free zone export apparel industry here.
The closure of Jockey's Lucea factory was linked to the shutdown of its Cooleemee, North Carolina, knitting facility, from which the Jamaica operation sourced its fabric.
But the apparel export business in the Caribbean had by then been facing dwindling markets and increasing operating costs, which made other Central American and Asian locations more attractive to garment manufacturers.
At the time of the Jockey pull-out, Karl Samuda, the investment and commerce minister, said another investor would have been found to operate at the facility. Exploratory talks were held with an information technology company, which found converting the plant too expensive, Samuda had said.
JTI was also believed to have been pursuing a Hanover investor but that prospect also fell through.