$14-million fund to market Jamaican coffee in Japan

While the governing body for the local coffee industry, the Coffee Industry Board (CIB), has embarked on a programme to cultivate other markets apart from Japan, the predominant destination for Jamaican premium coffee, the board and its main trading partners in that Asian market, have come up with a scheme to improve the profile of the product there. A deal between the Japanese coffee importers and the Jamaica Coffee Exporters' Association (JCEA), which will see US$0.10 per kilogramme of the product sold being put up by Jamaican exporters, with a matching amount from their counterpart importers in Japan to be used to burnish the image of the elite Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee brand in Japan.

The public relations fund is expected to amount to approximately US$160,000, or some J$14.2 million per year and is to be used to reposition the Jamaica Blue Mountain brand in the Japanese market.

Japan is the strongest market for Jamaican coffee and has purchased an average of 85 per cent of the island's coffee for the last 10 years.

In addition to the joint marketing fund, for 2010, the Japanese Ueshima Coffee Company (UCC), a major buyer, has also launched a special marketing programme for Blue Mountain coffee.

UCC engages in the manufacture and sale of canned coffee and other beverages. It is also involved in the import, processing and sale of coffee.

Long-term commitment

Meanwhile, as part of its market-diversification plans, the Ministry of Agriculture, the local coffee board and related parties have been holding talks with officials in China about the possibility of long-term commitments for development financing for Jamaica's coffee sector.

The CIB expects that China will represent a significant consumer of Jamaican coffee in the next 10 years, according to Director General Christopher Gentles.

Agriculture Minister Christopher Tufton, along with CIB chairman, Howard Mitchell, and other board and ministry representatives, recently travelled to China, where they visited the resort city of Hangzhou, for talks with Hangzhou Coffee and Western Foods Association.

"This city has a culture associated with the finest teas in China, and the heavy tourist traffic ensures that there is significant demand for a world-class premium coffee that defines Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee," the CIB's Gentles said.

He stated that the CIB is engaging both government and private groups in China. Consideration, he said, is also being given to the quality and market-policing requirements for premium Blue Mountain brand, which will be necessary with greater market penetration.

avia.collinder@gleanerjm.com