Ian Allen/Staff Photographer
Senator Norman Grant at his Mavis Bank offices.Dennise Williams, Staff Reporter
Senator Norman Grant, president of the Jamaica Agricultural Society, made waves earlier this year with the 'Eat Jamaican' campaign. But Senator Grant, the businessman, has also achieved a milestone this year. He states, "We have just finalised the first 20-foot container load of Jablum Ice Coffee to that market."
coffee delegation
As chief executive officer of the Mavis Bank Coffee Factory (MBCF), Senator Grant led a Jamaican coffee delegation to China to open doors and establish links for the unique Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee.
Senator Grant tells Sunday Business that, "The Jamaicans were warmly welcomed in China by Ambassador Wayne McCook, and Mr. Michael Chen of, JiPinLan (Beijing) Trading Inc. I addressed a gathering of over 400 of Beijing's finest business tycoons.
The launch took place at the Sheraton Great Wall Hotel, Beijing, China. Michael Chen, in his speech, commented that JiPinLan (Beijing) Trading Inc., was not only in the business of marketing the coffee, but was attempting to promote a culture, a life style. He described Jablum Blue Mountain Coffee as being full of respectfulness and sanctity, a symbol of grace and nobility, a representation of a life style, and emphasised that the quintessence of Jablum can't be copied."
first Jamaican coffee
company in China
And it is fitting that Jablum is the first Jamaican coffee company to reach China as Senator Grant states, "MBCF is proud of being Jamaica's oldest coffee company that is deeply rooted in a family tradition dated back to 1885." Additionally, "The record will reflect that it was Mavis Bank Coffee Factory and Keble Munn that introduced Blue Mountain coffee in the Japanese market in March of 1953, a market that now buys over 80 per cent of the Blue Mountain production that was estimated as generating some US$40 per annum before Hurricane Ivan."
In terms of MBCF's marketing strategy, Senator Grant said, "Over the next three years, we project that we can increase the demand for valued-added products in this new market by US$3 million and therefore, we will be actively promoting that farmers should plant more Blue Mountain coffee to fill this market and our existing market.
"This, therefore, is the prompt that took me into China. It is a huge market and I think that the potential is huge and based on our research, we discovered that there was Blue Mountain coffee supplied in that market, but no direct supplier and, therefore, we had everything to gain to be in that market."
An additional benefit to the Jablum presence in China, Senator Grant says, "Our presence in the market will help to get rid of counterfeit Blue Mountain coffee, as, working with the embassy in China, our agents will be sending back samples of coffee that are labelled Blue Mountain for us to forward to the Coffee Industry Board for tasting."
And he noted that any success that his company realises will be in partnership with, "the over 6,000 coffee farmers scattered across the hilly and difficult terrain of the Blue Mountains of Jamaica, spanning St. Andrew, St. Thomas and Portland."
