Wisynco setting up new distribution hub out west
HAVING CONTEMPLATED the move for two years, beverage company Wisynco Group Limited has struck a deal for warehousing space in Trelawny that will serve as a hub for its distribution activity in western Jamaica, where nearly a third of the businesses it supplies with product reside.
The company has leased a 20,000-squarefoot facility at Hague from Factories Corporation of Jamaica that was previously used by a car parts dealer. It will grow the warehousing space operated by the group to 370,000 square feet.
Wisynco is already retrofitting the building to suit its needs, and will also undertake work on roadways and parking areas. The terms of the arrangement with Factories Corporation, a government entity in the business of facilitating affordable operating space for productive enterprises and services, were not disclosed.
The development of a second distribution hub for the Wisynco Group, which manufactures and distributes WATA plain and flavoured waters, Boom energy drink, Bigga soft drink, Coca-Cola sodas, and represents numerous other beverage and consumer brands
as distributor, comes amid a resurgence of business as local companies continue to recover markets lost during the height of the pandemic.
Wisynco sales climbed to $9.2 billion, and its earnings surged 14 per cent to $967 million in the July-September quarter. Revenue outclassed the pre-pandemic inflows of $8.6 billion, but while profits fell short of the $1.1 billion made by Wisynco in the 2019 period, nearly a quarter of that was related to operations that were discontinued last year. Profits were largely flat when comparing just the continuing operations in the two periods.
The $1.2-billion improvement in revenue i n the JulySeptember 2021 quarter largely reflected growth in export sales, up 75 per cent yearon-year. But with local food establishments continuing to ramp up operations amid the relaxation of COVID-19 restrictions, Wisynco expects its domestic sales to be more vibrant in the periods ahead.
The new distribution centre, plans for which Wisynco first mentioned in 2019 and the full investment in which Mahfood said is still to be finalised, gives the White Marl, St Catherine-based company additional capacity and a quicker route to businesses along the north coast, which is home to many large hotels, a sector on which Jamaican companies rely for market.
“It’s going to require quite a bit of work,” Wisynco Executive Chairman
William Mahfood said of the Hague hub. “There was a tenant in the building, but it wasn’t that heavily used; in other words, it wasn’t being properly maintained, so we have some work to do, and that has delayed us moving in,”he told the Financial Gleaner.
Wisynco wants to commission the centre by the first quarter of 2022, that is, by next March. In the meantime, it’s hunting contract delivery drivers and mapping out routes to serve western Jamaica clients.
The delivery routes will cover Trelawny, St James, Westmoreland, Hanover, as well as St Elizabeth, which is on the south coast, and is expected to cut delivery time by up to 24 hours or around half the time it takes to deliver from its distribution base in St Catherine.
The region represents roughly 30 per cent of Wisynco’s total client base of 15,000.
“This is not a cost-saving play. The intention is to better service the smaller traditional accounts in the western and northern regions and to grow the business,” Mahfood said.
Currently, all orders are dispatched from Wisynco’s Lakes Pen, St Catherine distribution hub, from where delivery to out-of-town customers typically averages two days.
The products to be housed at the new facility will largely be those targeted at small shops, supermarkets and small hotels, but the centre will also handle rush orders from large hotels.
Wisynco has roughly 400 contracted truckers, the majority of whom are based in Kingston and St Catherine. It’s recruiting new drivers for the Hague centre, but the exact numbers needed are still being assessed.
Wisynco currently owns 70, that is, 20 per cent, of the trucks that deliver goods from the 350,000-square-foot Lakes Pen facility. The other 80 per cent of the truck fleet is owned by the contracted drivers. The company is looking to have a similar ratio of company-owned to contract-operated trucks in western Jamaica.
“I don’t see the company requiring less truckers, because our sale volumes are increasing,” Mahfood said.