In a matter of months, food manufacturer Seprod Limited will enter a market that has had a sole player for decades, the manufacture of flour, under partnership with a foreign firm that acquired a piece of its grains business more than a year ago.
Through Jamaica Grain & Cereals Limited, the partners have already poured funds into a new factory and development of grain silos on the wharf to facilitate imports of wheat, and at the plant on Felix Fox Boulevard in Kingston.
The overall budget for the project was not disclosed, although Gleaner Business was told that the spend could rise to around US$30 million, or $3.9 billion in local currency.
Seprod CEO Richard Pandohie says the factory should be commissioned by around end September or October, but he refused to confirm outright that the company is planning to operate a flour mill. He has not named the new foreign partner for Jamaica Grain, but Companies Office records suggest it might be American shipping and trading company Seaboard.
Well-placed sources say Seprod is now planning to produce wheat flour, in addition to cornmeal, which Jamaica Grain has manufactured for half a century.
It would be the second flour mill to operate in Jamaica. The other, Jamaica Flour Mills Limited (JFM), which is owned by American company ADM Milling, also operates from Kingston and has been around since 1964 when the company was established under the ‘industrialisation by invitation’ policy of the Jamaican government. ADM bought the business in 1997.
It means that local bakers will have a second large domestic source of raw material. Under the current market configuration, nearly all flour used commercially in Jamaica is supplied by JFM, with token amounts imported by traders.
A permit was just granted to Seprod by the National Environment & Planning Agency in March, for operation of the facility that has been under development for around 18 months at the industrial company’s complex and adjacent property at Newport East.
Pandohie says the company is holding back on details of the project for a full announcement next week at Seprod’s 78th annual general meeting.
“The chairman of the group will make an announcement … we can’t say any more at this time but he
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