Red Stripe Jamaica annual sales surpass $22b
Published:Tuesday | July 17, 2018 | 12:00 AMSteven Jackson/Senior Business Reporter
Desnoes & Geddes Limited, which trades as Red Stripe Jamaica, recorded revenues of $22.2 billion for its full year ending December 2017.
Sales rose $3 billion or 15.6 per cent year-on-year, according to the brewery's financial results.
Red Stripe, which is now owned by Heineken, controls the lion's share of Jamaica's beer market. The company, which is currently celebrating a century of operations, began as a combination of the businesses of Eugene Peter Desnoes and Thomas Hargreaves Geddes in 1918. The drinks company fell into Diageo Plc's ownership in 1993, and the English company eventually sold out to minority partner Heineken in 2015.
Heineken subsequently took Desnoes & Geddes private.
The brewery's 2017 financials obtained by the Financial Gleaner indicates that the company made a net profit of $3.1 billion, but underperformed 2016, when it made $3.35 billion.
Red Stripe Jamaica declined to comment on its financials, including its outlook for 2018, saying it was in a 'quiet period' until the release of aggregated financials by its parent.
The brewery recently commissioned a new production line, which can run on liquefied natural gas in order to cut fuel costs. As at December 2017, the value of its fixed assets was estimated at $14 billion, up from $11.8 billion a year earlier. Equity in the company increased to $15.3 billion from $13.1 billion.