Do more to market Jamaica’s jerk style, says Davis

Homer Davis, minister of state in the Office of the Prime Minister (West), said greater efforts should be spearheaded toward marketing Jamaica’s signature ‘jerk’ style of seasoning and food preparation globally.

Speaking at last Thursday’s media launch of the 2023 Montego Bay Jerk and Food Festival (MoBay Jerk Fest) at the Holiday Inn Resort in Rose Hall, St James, Davis cited the 101-year-old GraceKennedy Group as an example for smaller groups like the jerk festival’s organisers to emulate. GraceKennedy was seeking to market Grace jerk seasoning, along with other products to foreign consumers as at last year November.

“This is a product that can be transferred to the Caribbean, because I have been elsewhere, and no jerk nuh deh like fi wi jerk a Jamaica. They try to get the seasoning from here, but there is a way in which we do it so that it just does not taste the same elsewhere. So we have a product here, where visitors who come to our island come because of the jerk, and so we need to exploit the areas that we are good in,” Davis added.

He also recommended that, for local food festivals, such as MoBay Jerk Fest, there should be greater diversity in the presentation of Jamaica’s signature ‘jerk’ style of cooking in order to broaden the local gastronomy market.

DIVERSE

“We must exploit what we are good at, and we are good at gastronomy, at food. We need to have more food festivals, and we do not need to wait until August 1 before we have food festivals. What we need to do is that we need to be more diverse,” said Davis.

“Instead of jerk pork and jerk chicken, we can have jerk rabbit, jerk beef and jerk mutton, but we need to diversify. You go into the supermarket and you see ham in different configurations, so we need to look seriously at how we can diversify the market,” Davis added.

Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett, in 2016, had expressed similar views on Jamaica’s potential to tap into the US$150 billion international gastronomy market. At that time, Bartlett said Jamaica’s food offerings rank among the best in the world, with local cuisine being a major draw for overseas visitors.

In 2015, a geographical indication system was launched during a Jamaica Intellectual Property Office and World Intellectual Property Organisation forum as part of efforts to protect Jamaica’s brand by copyrighting Jamaican Jerk

Andrew Allen, relationship manager at Best Dressed Chicken, encouraged potential patrons to come out and take full advantage of this year’s staging of MoBay Jerk Fest, of which his company is one of the main sponsors and which will be held on August 1 at Catherine Hall Entertainment Centre in Montego Bay.

“We are happy to come onboard as one of the main sponsors, and we just want to say to the community to come out and support the thing, come out and enjoy some nice jerk chicken, and just come and have a good time,” said Allen.