Coffee company Salada Foods Jamaica Limited has run into problems with the suppliers of the bottles for its Mountain Peak instant coffee, and consequently has been unable to supply the grocery market over the Christmas holidays.

Later, it emerged that ground coffee was also affected, but this was linked more to crop disruptions caused by Hurricane Dean.

Salada, confirming the shortage, told the Financial Gleaner that Vical, its Guatamelan supplier, had been experiencing difficulties.

"Disruption in bottle supplies from our Guatemala manufacturers, due to a breakdown of one of their furnaces, has led to shortages in some of our stock-keeping units," managing director John Rosen confirmed after calls to his office.

Normality on the horizon

But Rosen, whose company pulls in more than $300 million in annual revenues, said yesterday that bottles were now in stock and that supplies should be normalised.

Its not known in what volumes Salada supplies local supermarkets with its popular coffee - that information the company considers proprietary - but it was clear just ahead of Christmas that while supplies were disappearing from the shelves, the stock was not being replenished.

The product is sold in three sizes, two, 3.5 and six ounce jars, as well as sachets.

Low on inventory

Checks with some of the major retailers and distributors revealed that they were either out of stock or low on inventory.

"We have none in stock for the last two weeks," said Samantha Charles, business services manager at PriceSmart Jamaica, where only the Nescafé brand was on display.

Charles said an order had been placed from December 12, but up to this week, nothing was on file for delivery which she says is not a normal occurrence.

Deliveries to the Red Hills Road, Kingston operation are usually in quantities of 500 bottles once or twice per month, Charles said, with over 700 bottles now on order to be filled.

Lasco's purchasing officer said the company had no Mountain Peak instant coffee in stock, while T. Geddes Grant indicated that its inventories had been low since December, and were now below 20 per cent of its required need.

"We are low on inventory levels since December," said sales manager Bruce Taylor.

"The previous months we could get some sizes but not others - for example the packaging of single and double cup sachets, and the two and six ounce bottles."

Rosen said its packaging problem was two to three weeks old, but at least one retailer said that stocks had been running low from long before.

Impacted by Hurricane Dean

"We were not getting adequate supply for one and a half to two months," said Jeffery Gordon, director of operations at MegaMart Wholesale Club.

Gordon said he was advised that some of the problems were related to Hurricane Dean in August, but that normal supplies would be available by early February.

Rosen, when queried on the fallout from the hurricane, would not give specifics, but said the storm had an impact on the availability of coffee beans for their roast and ground products.

Later, Rosen said that some warehouse inventories had been affected for up to two months creating some shortages on the local market for which they have had to source imports to fill the gap, but would not comment on the quantities purchased.

The situation is expected to hurt the company financially, but Rosen said it was too early to quantify the fallout.

sabrina.gordon@gleanerjm.com