Jamaica Broilers buffeted by lingering Beryl headwinds
Published:Friday | December 13, 2024 | 4:45 AM
It has been a stormy half-year for poultry producer Jamaica Broilers Group Limited, which has been pummelled by hurricane winds, both in Jamaica and the United States.
“We’re turning the corner. It’s more not so much damage to assets, it was more birds, live production impact than anything else, and that takes a little longer to recover from in some cases,” said Jamaica Broilers President and CEO Christopher Levy.
Jamaica Broilers operates in South Carolina and Florida in the US, both of which were affected by Beryl, as was its main market of Jamaica.
Consequently, the Jamaican operations reported an 11 per cent decline in operating profit to $3.3 billion, over the May-October period, on the back of a one per cent dip in total revenue for the geographic segment.
Beryl was a deadly and destructive storm that impacted parts of the Caribbean, the Yucatán Peninsula, and the Gulf Coast of the United States in late June and early July. It was the earliest-forming Category 5 hurricane on record.
Jamaica Broilers’ US operations reported a segment profit of $2.4 billion, which was $185 million or eight per cent above the previous year’s performance, driven, Levy said, by increased volumes of poultry meat. Total revenue for the US operations increased by eight per cent over the six-month period for 2023.
Not all the losses have yet been counted in the US market, Levy explained.
“What you find in the US is a little different impact, in terms of live production, and some of that is still to be accounted for,” he said.
“These things cause you to really focus and get your team focused and take on the challenging times and the good times,” he added.
Now that the hurricane season has passed, said Levy, Broilers would focus on stabilising the operations, amid signs of new energy in the market.
“In Jamaica, we’re coming into a Christmas season that has all the signs of being a positive one for us. We have good inventories, good production,” he said.
In the US market, however, the company expects a slowdown in business following on from the Thanksgiving season.
Jamaica Broilers recorded $320-million slide in net profit to $2.2 billion for the six-month period ended October.