370 workers head home as Appleton shutters sugar factory
Published:Thursday | July 30, 2020 | 12:21 AM
Mark Titus/Gleaner Writer
Approximately 370 workers are to be made redundant after J. Wray & Nephew Ltd (JWN) confirmed that it is pulling out of sugar production and closing the historic Appleton Estate Sugar Factory in Siloah, St Elizabeth, with immediate effect.
The management of the farm will be divested to a third-party company that is expected to re-employ a significant number of the affected staff. That company, which was not declared, will subsidise the transportation of cane to Frome Estate in Westmoreland for the more than 300 suppliers of raw material to the factory.
Plans are also in place to alleviate the impact on third-party farmers.
Appleton’s exit follows similar redundancy exercises at other sugar factories in Golden Grove, St Thomas; New Yarmouth in Clarendon; and Long Pond, Trelawny, in recent years.
“We have been sustaining continued losses from sugar production for a protracted period of time, and, therefore, the company was forced to consider the closure of its factory operation,” Clement ‘Jimmy’ Lawrence, chairman of JWN, told The Gleaner on Wednesday evening.
“We have a capacity for 50,000 tonnes. Now, we are down in 2020 to 10,000 tonnes, so you see how that would affect our operations very negatively.”
The company also pointed to COVID-19 restrictions that resulted in the closure of bars and the lockdown of tourism and other routes-to-market, subsequently crippling its domestic and export earnings.
Lawrence said that the company tried to prevent a shutdown despite annual losses of US$12 million on its sugar-production operations for more than a decade.
“Regrettably, this is going to affect 370 of our employees, but I think we are known for being a conscientious and considerate company, and as a result, we have constructed what is being regarded as a very generous redundancy package.”
Appleton, Pan Caribbean Sugar Company in Frome, Westmoreland, and Worthy Park Estate churned a combined 43,000 tonnes of the sweetener for the 2019-2020 sugar crop year, with the St Elizabeth-based factory contributing just over 11,000 tonnes.
With just two factories to make the sweetener when the 2020-2021 crop year begins in December, Karl James, chairman of the Sugar Association of the Caribbean (SAC) and one of the most respected voices in the local sugar industry, says the closure will hurt surrounding communities.
“It is not necessarily the end of sugar, but it is very near the end if something does not happen quickly,” James told The Gleaner on Wednesday. “In 1986, there were eight factories producing 200,000 tonnes of sugar, and that is coming from us making over 500,000 tonnes in 1965.”
“Even though 370 are being made redundant, this will affect thousands of lives in the parish. The economies will take a beating because many know nothing else but working in sugar,” James added.
However, the Appleton Estate Distillery and the Joy Spence Appleton Estate Rum Experience (JS-AERE) will continue operations, and the company will maintain an interest in the rehabilitation of the rail lines from Montego Bay to enhance the Appleton Rum Tour experience.
Speaking at a recent ceremony in Braes River, where Prime Minister Andrew Holness was the guest speaker, political aspirant Basil Waite pleaded for government intervention to prevent any fallout at Appleton Estate.
But in his response, the prime minister argued that the role of Government is to facilitate and create an enabling environment for the private sector to invest, insisting that the State would not be involved in such commercial activity again.
According to JWN, further discussions will be held on August 5, following which an official date for the redundancy will be announced.