Pioneer Manufacturing now exporting bleach to Cayman

AFTER THREE years of trying to woo Cayman Islands with its line of cleaning agents, Pioneer Manufacturing Distribution Company sent off its second shipment of Chloro-Do bleach to that country on Monday, a trading window it said was opened up due, in part, to the novel coronavirus.

In Jamaica and around the world, the markets for cleaning products and solvents have been expanding due to increased sanitisation protocols to combat the virus, creating opportunities for companies like Pioneer to grow.

Not only has the Jamaican company retained its staff complement of 60, but Pioneer also contracted with three local producers of cleaning agent to ensure the consistent production of its Chloro-Do brand.

“The consumption of bleach as a cleaning agent has increased significantly there, and based on that, one of the distributors we were in discussions with reached out to us,” Pioneer Managing Director Alfred Thomas said of the Cayman Islands shipments.

Pioneer has signed off on a three-year contract with the Cayman-based distributor, who plans to market the product through supermarkets and sell to commercial customers.

“There are three large supermarket chains in Cayman and they had to ration the bleach when it was placed on the shelves. Each customer was only allowed to buy two bottles of the bleach, which is very good from a marketing and distribution point of view,” Thomas said.

“The island of Cayman has 7,000 people, and if 400 persons take home two bottles and 100 persons take one bottle, it means we will get excellent distribution in the marketplace,” he said.

Pioneer shipped its first 1,000 cases of Chloro-Do bleach to Cayman Islands last week. The company will follow up with monthly supplies.

In addition to the Chloro-Do bleach, Kingston-based Pioneer manufactures Chloro-Blu cake soap and Chloro-Soft fabric softener, which are distributed locally through supermarkets, wholesale establishments, and pharmacies.

The company is also sole distributor of the Sealed Air food care and product care lines in Jamaica, which it supplies to food and beverage manufacturing companies.

Cayman Islands becomes the third regional country for Pioneer ‘s Chloro-Do bleach. It has been supplying the tiny island of Dominica for the past two years, and Thomas hopes to add Barbados, St Lucia, Grenada and Guyana to its export markets.

“Those are stable economies, and they are attractive because of the ability to find good distributors and partners. Increasing our footprint across the Caribbean will improve our foreign exchange earnings potential,” he said.

Thomas has been keeping the lines of communication open with distributors of the targeted countries, and is confident he can land contracts with three of the named countries by August.

In the meantime, the company is working to retain current contracts by assigning a team leader and manager in Cayman to work with the distributor, as well as examine new opportunities.

karena.bennett@gleanerjm.com