The Sugar Market is set to get sweeter in 2016.
GraceKennedy and Seprod are now entering this largely
unregulated market as reported in “Big
Players Enter Retail Sugar Market”, published Sunday January 17, 2016 by
Tameka Gordon, The Jamaica Gleaner.
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There is now an awful lot of companies and private
interest entering the Sugar trade aside from these two new entrants:
1. Palm
Rose Commodity
2. DK
Processors Jamaica
3. Sue
Pat Sales
4. HarveDan
Marketing Limited
5. Green
Hills Distributors
DK Processors Jamaica sells refined Sugar and icing Sugar
under the brand Diamond Krystal. Meanwhile Sue Pat distributes refined and
icing Sugar under the Paradise brand.
HarveDan sells an icing Sugar called Bakers Marc and
Green Hills Distributors sells an imported evaporated cane-juice product, a
health-food product currently sold in Kingston and Ocho Rios.
Currently only three (3) companies are licensed to
sell packaged Sugar from Sugar refineries in Jamaica:
1. JCPS
(Jamaica Cane Product Sales)
2. Pan
Caribbean Sugar Company
3. Golden
Grove
Explains why the Ministry of Agriculture and BSJ
(Bureau of Standards Jamaica) in November 2015 began creating labeling
standards to regulate this slowly goring industry as noted in my blog
article entitled “Why
Ministry of Agriculture and BSJ Branded Sugar means Price increase coming - How
Packaging and Labelling Sugar protects the Jamaican consumer”.
So who are these Sugar producers? And what do they
bring to the Sugar table?
Sugar
in Jamaica - Producers cashing on Jamaica’s sweet tooth
Personally I’m not a big fan of Sugar, being as I'm
trying and failing to cut it out of my diet.
Alas, Sugar is in almost everything that I eat, be
it HFSC (High Fructose Corn Syrup) of HSCS (High Sucrose Corn Syrup) in
pastries and cakes or regular refined Sugar that I use in my coffee.
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The Jamaican Sugar market is just getting hip to
having variety in their sweetener, but for now the main types being sold by the
Sugar processors are:
1. Brown
Sugar
2. Refined
Sugar
There are many different types of Sugar
according to the Sugar Associations website, based on the level of
processing to suit market demands, but they all fall under three (3)
categories:
1. Brown
Sugar
2. White
Sugar
3. Liquid
Sugar
The misconception that Brown Sugar is not processed
in any way is not true; the mere fact it’s in a bag means it’s been processed,
probably not as much as White Sugar or Liquid Sugar. Here in Jamaica the Sugar
processors and the Sugar producers have a very nice relationship.
Palm Rose Commodity is the maker of Royal Rose brand
of refined sugar at their plant in Newport West, Kingston. Royal Rose made its
debut on the Sugar market in October 2015. Their Sugar is supplied to them by
JCPS. JCPS meanwhile is both a producer of Sugar as well as a seller of their
own brand, Jamaica Gold.
Strangely, JCPS doesn't package their brown and
refined Sugar; that's done by Sugar supplier Caribbean Depot Limited as
explained in the article “Two
Decades Later, 'Jamaica Gold' Still Seeking Market Sweet Spot - Supplies To
Double Under JCPS-Caribbean Depot Partnership”, published Friday June 27,
2014, by Tameka Gorcon, The Jamaica
Gleaner.
The twenty (20) year old Jamaica brand is soon to
get a boost thanks to Caribbean Depot investment in US$400,000 in equipment and
upgrades in 2016 as demand for their services is booming. Some interesting
stats on two of the licensed branded Sugar retailers as supplied by JCPS
General Manager Karl James:
1. 53,000
tonnes of brown Sugar sold by JCPS and Pan Caribbean in 2014
2. 49,000
tonnes of brown Sugar sold by JCPS and Pan Caribbean in 2015
3. 6,000
tonnes of Jamaica Gold branded Sugar sold by JCPS in 3 years
4. 2,000
tonnes of Jamaica Gold branded Sugar sold by JCPS annually
So what does GraceKennedy and Seprod bring to Sugar
market that is slowly getting more crowded?
Seprod
and GraceKennedy - Healthy Sugar alternative for the Health conscious market
Seprod, owners of Golden Grove Sugar Factory, are
rolling out a 50-kilogramme bulk package of Golden Grove Pure Jamaican Cane Sugar.
This is basically brown Sugar in the following sizes:
1. 500
grams
2. 1
kg
3. 2
kg
4. 50
kg
Expect the prices to be as follows:
1. JA$85
for 500 gram
2. JA$170
for 1 kg
This rollout will be completed over a two week span.
The Seprod owned Golden Grove Sugar Factory, located
in St. Thomas, has been a JA$2 billion loss making entity since they purchase
the Sugar factory in 2009 as noted in the article “Golden
Grove Looking To Rebound From $2 Billion Losses”, published Friday August
7, 2015 by Mark Titus, The Jamaica
Gleaner.
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However, they’ve decided to invest some JA$120
million to market their Sugar as branded Sugar in hopes of making a profit as explained
in the article “Seprod
To Capitalise On Marketing Agency Status With Branded Retail Sugar Product”,
published Friday September 18, 2015, by Neville Graham, The Jamaica Gleaner.
As for GraceKennedy, they've entered the Sugar
market since November 2015 with a refined Sugar product now on the shelves of
their Hi-Lo supermarket. The GraceKennedy branded Sugar product comes in the
following sizes similar to Seprod's Golden Grove Pure Jamaican Cane Sugar:
1. 500
grams
2. 1
kg
3. 2
kg
No word on sales but Chief Executive Officer of
GraceKennedy Foods Jamaica Andrea Coy predict triple their current revenues in
2017. I suspect that GraceKennedy will be tapping into the health conscious
market segment in Jamaica as they’re doing in the US of A as predicted in my MICO Wars blog article
entitled “How
Gracekennedy Aloe Vera Sinkle Bibles American Health Drinks in 2016”.
They’ll most likely be marketing other types of Sugar
such as Sugars made from fruits or infused with flavours, possibly even glowing
in the dark using quinine as explained in my blog
article entitled “How
to make Glow-in-the-Dark Jamaica Cassava Toto”.
Not sure how Sugar can be healthy in any way, being
as it is associated with Lifestyle diseases such as per the UNFAO and IICA
reports as collated in my blog
article entitled “How
UNFAO and IICA Reports indicate that Wealthy Jamaicans are malnourished”
but the market is clearly set to expand with the addition of the corporate
giants.
Sugar is sweet and so is the soon-to-be regulated
Branded Sugar Market in Jamaica.
Here’s the link:
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