JPG resumes banana exports
Published:Friday | February 3, 2012 | 12:00 AM
Steven Jackson, Business Reporter
Jamaica Producers Group (JPG) resumed the export of bananas last December but says its markets will be limited to countries in the Caribbean that do not grow the fruit.
JPG had ceased the exporting the centuries-old traditional crop four years ago, but continued producing bananas - formerly the island's third-largest export crop - for local consumption in green and ripened form, and for the manufacture of chips.
JPG is shipping bananas to the high-income market of the Cayman Islands in an initial launch into other non-banana producing islands, managing director Jeffrey Hall said Thursday in response to Gleaner queries.
"We decided to explore the opportunities for export to the Caribbean because we believe that we have a good product," said Hall about the export of ripe and green bananas to that market. "We started in December and it's only to Cayman for now."
Hall said the resumption means more symbolically than its initial revenue gain to JPG's profitability.
"We will ship about 20 forty-foot containers to Cayman," said Hall about the first year of export resumption without revealing revenues estimates. The shipments to Cayman would amount to about 20,000 boxes of the fruit.
It will create no new jobs.
"It does, however, have symbolic importance," he said.
Banana exports, currently documented at nil in official trade data, slashed some 400 jobs following its cessation in 2008 after JPG's banana fields were decimated by storms since about 2004. The new export initiative would not generate new employment, but utilise existing resources.
"We will be utilising existing capacity," said Hall about his company, which is the island's largest banana producer.
Hall said that the bananas would equally appeal to the Jamaican diaspora and Caymanians.
"There is a market in Cayman for both green and ripe bananas which provides an opportunity for JP. However, there are opportunities for Jamaican businesses to do more in Cayman and we have seen an opportunity there," he said.
The Banana Board and JPG have been in negotiations regarding the streamlining of licences and quality controls in order to facilitate further banana exports, Hall said.
"When you export bananas from Jamaica you have to be licensed by the board. Secondly, you have to subject the bananas to quality controls," he said. "These licences and quality controls need to be streamlined to allow for a more entrepreneurial business environment."
JPG mainly exported bananas to the United Kingdom up to 2008.