Bold Move -Butch Hendrickson doubles support for manufacturers
Published:Tuesday | April 10, 2018 | 12:00 AMPaul Clarke/Gleaner Writer
Small local manufacturers are to benefit from a doubling of support from the National Baking Company when it hosts the Bold Ones at Expo Jamaica 2018 at the National Indoor Sports Centre next month, Butch Hendrickson, the company's chairman and chief executive officer, disclosed yesterday.
The company has invested more than $120 million in the Bold Ones of Manufacturing programme since its inception in 2010 by helping small local manufacturers gain exposure through marketing and extensive publicity. Collectively, the Bold Ones have contributed to economic growth with the creation of more than 500 additional jobs in their sectors.
At Expo Jamaica 2018, the company will create an interactive platform for a number of their past Bold Ones of Manufacturing to share their products and entrepreneurial experiences at Expo Jamaica 2018.
He added: "The Bold Ones of 2018 is going to be different than it was previously in that we are going to take the booths that we would normally reserve for individuals and we are going to put them together and ask the older Bold Ones to be part of this to mentor and share information with young entrepreneurs and small companies who are looking at getting into manufacturing.
"Tell them what your plans are, tell them how you did it; how you rose to prominence. Show them the pitfalls," Hendrickson encouraged experienced manufacturers yesterday at his family-owned Jamaica Pegasus hotel in Kingston.
Past Bold Ones that will feature at Expo Jamaica include Mount Pleasant Farm Chocolatiers, Shavout Farms, UMIUM, Spring Vale, Chocolate Dreams, Matie Sauce, Spur Tree Spices, Belcour Preserves, Country House Products, Irie Rock, Bartley's All in Wood, D'NexStep Sandals, Home Choice, Ettenio, Ecofarms, Pretti Slippery and Turner Innovations.
Expo Jamaica will be hosted from April 19-22 and aspiring and existing manufacturers are invited to hear testimonials from Bold Ones as they share insight on obstacles, growth and success in their businesses.
President of the Private Sector Organization of Jamaica, Howard Mitchell, hailed the efforts of National Baking Company and endorsed the plan as laid out by Hendrickson, describing it as useful help to small manufacturers.
"This is the type of innovation and spirit that we need. The PSOJ is here to naturally endorse National's effort," Mitchell said.
Shaw vows manufacturing sector turnaround
Audley Shaw, portfolio minister for commerce and industry, vowed yesterday to help reignite the manufacturing sector to achieve robust growth.
Shaw, who was speaking at the launch of National Baking Company's initiative, The Bold Ones at Expo Jamaica 2018, in Kingston yesterday, said it was vitally important that manufacturing reclaimed its rightful place at the top of the pyramid as an economic driver of growth.
"There was a time when we started venturing into free trade and Jamaica plunged headlong into free trade; everything was free, free, free," he said. "And that, along with the mismanagement of the economy, led to the collapse of the manufacturing sector," recounted Shaw.
He said that manufacturing, by the 1980s, stood at 20 per cent of the nation's gross domestic product, but it has fallen to seven per cent of GDP in today's Jamaica.
Shaw also added that under his stewardship of the Ministry of Industry, Commerce, Agriculture and Fisheries, he would be targeting idle lands to put them into use for, among other things, agriculture and other industries in an attempt to help stimulate a sustainable economic growth trajectory.