MONTEGO BAY, St James — Sandals International Resorts (SRI) revealed last week that the major slice of agricultural produce consumed by guests at Sandals properties in Jamaica, is grown locally.
“Of the 5.4 million pounds of produce, including fruits and vegetables that all of our resorts (in Jamaica) consume annually, five million, or 90 per cent of those fruits and vegetables are grown right here in Jamaica. And that five million is grown by over 2,000 farmers across the length and breadth of Jamaica. I am pretty much sure that we touch every single parish in Jamaica with some of the produce that we acquire from them,” Jordan Samuda, director of Sandals’ Procurement Division stated while adding that “our Chairman’s (Gordon “Butch” Stewart’s) message has always been to buy local, and this is precisely what we do…”
Samuda was speaking at the Sandals’ Overdrive Caribbean tour 2018 at the Montego Bay Convention Centre in Rose Hall last week.
Recently, agriculture minister Audley Shaw expressed his disgust that most of the food consumed in our hotels “fly in on the same aeroplanes as the tourists”. He signalled his intent to have hotels use more local produce to minimise the incidence of glut on the domestic agriculture sector.
“Check the hotels on the north coast. The very thing that we have glut on right now, they have flown them in on planes coming with tourists to feed (them). That is one thing I can tell you that’s on my radar. That has got to change,” Shaw stressed.
The minister was speaking at the recent launch of the 66th Denbigh Agricultural, Industrial and Food Show scheduled for August 4-6, 2018, at the Denbigh show grounds in May Pen, Clarendon.
Citing the $25-million Irish potato seeds project, which Sandals provides to local farmers, Samuda further disclosed that not only does Sandals purchase the lion’s share of their supplies from local farmers, but it also initiates programmes for their development.
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