JWN column still on the cutting edge
J. WRAY & Nephew (JWN) Limited is placing a US$14.1 million bet on a new rum still to elevate the production facility to the highest standards for rum production in Jamaica. In doing so, the company wants to enhance its global competitiveness, according to Managing Director Jean-Philippe Beyer.
The new column, still at New Yarmouth in Clarendon, is not the first for the company. Along with the more traditional pot stills at the company’s Appleton, St Elizabeth rum factory, JWN has five other column stills, which is one third the capacity of the new column still.
Beyer says the new facility is well needed, since Jamaica greatly desires to ramp up production to meet the demand for Jamaican rum, which has exploded over the last five years.
“This cutting-edge technology enables the production of multiple rum brands from a single column, marking a significant leap forward in the industry,” Beyer said after the official commissioning of the new still.
He says the older system, consisting of the five columns stills, was able to produce two marques of rum, but the new system will offer greater flexibility, in addition to greater capacity.
“This new installation is a bespoke column still specially created with unique design innovations to be able to produce multiple rum marques from just this single column,” Beyer told Sunday Business.
The new column still provides approximately three times the volume when compared to the system at Appleton. Beyer says this will put Jamaica’s rum production at the highest standards for rum production globally, as well as decrease JWN’s fuel consumption by roughly 30 per cent. The new system will run continuously.
Beyer says the same molasses feedstock will be used to produce multiple rum brands from the new still.
J. Wray & Nephew Limited is Jamaica’s leading rum manufacturer and a subsidiary of the Campari Group,