Calming coffee concerns - Grant moves to allay fears of Mavis Bank residents that Lee-Chin is set to relocate factory

For years, the Mavis Bank Coffee Factory (MBCF) has been a source of pride and a dependable source of employment for residents in the rural St Andrew community where it is located.

But a recent change in its ownership has fuelled fears that operations at the factory are heading to Kingston.

"Everything is just in a cloud of secrecy. We just see trucks passing with yellow tape all the while," said one resident who expressed fear that the trucks were moving equipment from the factory to Kingston.

Shares from the MBCF were transferred to the Michael Lee-Chin owned Speciality Coffee Investments Company Limited in 2016. Lee-Chin also acquired Wallenford Coffee Company in 2013 through his other investment company, AIC International.

Talks of the impending changes at the factory have dominated discussions in Mavis Bank in the past couple of weeks, and taxi driver Shane Henry has been privy to several of these discussions.

"It rough to see that they are going to lock down the only place that people can get a work. I hear that all machine move out," Henry told The Sunday Gleaner.

"Them just need to just tell us the plain truth about what a gwaan," added Henry.

He said a few of the women he usually transports have been given redundancy letters and are now mulling their next move. Others, who are still employed, are concerned about how a possible relocation of the factory to Kingston, where Wallenford is located, could affect their lives.

"To close it down, I see it as a big loss because it is the only place now in Mavis Bank where mainly ladies get employment and it is one of the main sources where a lot of them get their money to send their children to school.

"The transportation system is not too wonderful up here, neither the roads, so if they have to travel from up here to go down there (Kingston) to work, they would have to wake up from 4:00 o'clock or 3:30," said Henry.

One farmer told The Sunday Gleaner that coffee production has been affected as a result of the rumours of the impending closure, coupled with a drop in the price paid for the beans over the years.

Shalome DaCosta, who has been a coffee farmer for years, said the business is not as appealing anymore as a result of the two factors.

"We were disappointed when we hear that coffee price drop to $4,000 a box and we can't even buy a bag of fertiliser for $4,000 a bag," said DaCosta.

He said there was a time when farmers were able to sell a box of coffee for $12,000.

"Right now, people have them coffee pon tree a rotten," lamented DaCosta.

"Coffee bear this year, is the most mi ever see coffee in my life and it's $4,000 a box, and because around there lock down, the man them a wonder where the coffee is going to go," he said.

CERTIFICATION

But chief executive officer and managing director of MBCF, Norman Grant, said there is no basis for the fears of the residents.

"That is the greatest rumour-mongering that I've heard for a long while. We have just last week completed safe quality food (SQF) certification. We are SQF-certified," said Grant, as he argued that the certification will allow the company to target more markets.

According to Grant, with the dip in coffee prices on the world market, efforts are being made to reposition the business.

"When you have to right-side a company, it doesn't mean that the company is closing down. It simply means that you have to look at your cost and your bottom line.

"We have made some positions redundant. What we have to do is to reorganise our structure, so that we can deal with the huge decrease in the price that is being offered by the market now, which is down from $60 per kilo maybe two or three years ago to 50 per cent of that.

"So in the context of your reduced revenues, we have to do a number of things, we have to become leaner and more efficient, and second, we have to look to diversity," added Grant.

He said the company employs about 200 persons and this increases to about 300 during the peak of the coffee season in March/April. About 95 per cent of these individuals are from Mavis Bank and surrounding communities.

Grant said MBCF has been losing a lot of business because of poor Internet connectivity, and as such it had no choice but to relocate some aspects of its operation to Kingston to get better access to international markets and fulfil online orders. The company's most recent redundancy exercise was about two weeks ago.

But Grant was adamant that work will continue at the factory located in the hills of St Andrew.

"We pulp, we dry, we store, which is warehousing, we will do all, of the dry process, the hulling, the grading, the hand-sorting, and also roasting here," said Grant, as he tried to allay the fears of the residents.

nadine.wilson@gleanerjm.com