Wisynco expects Bigga revenue growth after repatriation
Published:Tuesday | May 18, 2021 | 11:49 PM
Large manufacturer Wisynco Group Limited has brought production of Bigga soft drinks back to its plant in Lakes Pen, St Catherine, bringing an end to a manufacturing agreement the beverage maker had with a partner in the United Kingdom that has produced the soft drink for that market since 2013.
The decision, chairman of the Wisynco Group, William Mahfood said, was made late 2019 after expansion of the production and warehousing facilities at Lakes Pen.
In February, the conglomerate recommenced production of Bigga for the UK market from its own plant.
“What we found is that the UK consumers prefer the Jamaican manufactured Bigga,” Mahfood told the Financial Gleaner.
“But the real other benefit is that we’ve been able to negotiate very favourable shipping rates into the UK market and that has allowed us to be able to sell competitively against products that are locally manufactured in the UK,” he said.
Wisynco’s export portfolio represents roughly 50 per cent of its business.
For its third quarter ended March 31, 2021, the conglomerate posted profit of $672 million on revenues of $7.6 billion, partly attributable to export sales which were up 50 per cent quarter over quarter. Profit is up 16 per cent, relative to March 2020.
Wisynco currently ships over 36,000 cases of Bigga annually to the European market, including Sweden and Holland.
Mahfood anticipates a 60 per cent increase in export revenue for the Bigga soft drink for January-June 2021, from shipments to the UK. However, the increase in the export numbers is not expected to result in new hires in the short term. Wisynco has a long-standing arrangement with conglomerate GraceKennedy, which handles the shipment of its products through Grace Foods UK.
The repatriation of Bigga’s UK production process comes five years after Wisynco brought back the production of Bigga soft drinks from the US market.
It’s doing the same for its CranWata flavoured water product sold in the UK, but needs to perfect the production process.
“We are still working out the details around that because it has a short shelf life,” Mahfood said.