JABLUM JAMAICA Limited has expanded its range of Blue Mountain Coffee products to include the Jablum Instant Coffee which is now available both locally and overseas.
The company, which controls approximately 60 per cent of the roasted beans and ground coffee marketed throughout Jamaica, expects that the new product will cater to a niche in the Instant Coffee market for a high quality inexpensive product.
General manager of Jablum, Senator Norman Grant, said at the launching of the product in Mavis Bank, St. Andrew on Thursday, "We are aggressively pursuing the production of more value-added products like the Instant Coffee as part of our overall long term strategy to convert all we take from the farmers into saleable
products."
Senator Grant who is also general manager for the Mavis Bank Central Factory Limited (MBCF), a supplier of green beans to Jablum, said that currently, 80 per cent of all coffee beans produced by the MBCF is exported; the remainder is either sold to Jablum for roasting or to other companies for various uses.
The Jablum Instant Coffee will be a 100 per cent Jamaican product made from coffee beans without fillers or additives.
The launch of the Jablum Instant Coffee coincides with the introduction of the Jablum Coffee Beverage, expected to hit the market in July.
During the last seven years, MBCF and Jablum have successfully strengthened their positions in the coffee industry through plant modernisation especially with the commissioning of a US$3 million processing plant at the MBCF in 2001 that increased processing capacity from 725,000 kilograms to 1.8 million kilograms.
Sales of Blue Mountain Coffee products in green and roasted forms for MBCF and Jablum have averaged approximately US$12 million per year for the past five years.
