WALKERSWOOD, the world-renown food processing company in St Ann, on Saturday broke ground for a new factory that will cost $150 million to build and triple its production capacity.

The 45,000 square foot expansion project, to start in six weeks, is scheduled for completion by next August and will enable the company to begin canning ackee and callaloo in addition to boosting production of its other 17 products.

“The Walkerswood story is a success — a success story on community building,” declared Governor-General Sir Howard Cooke, who performed the ceremonial ground-breaking.

“It needs to be spread throughout the world as a form of encouragement and example of what can happen when citizens use their resources unselfishly and in the building of a vibrant community for the common good of all,” Sir Howard added.

Walkerswood is owned by its employees and evolved over two decades from a series of community businesses started in the early 1970s by approximately 12 residents of that St Ann district.

Today, the company produces jerk seasonings, a variety of sauces, solomon gundy and wheat nut, an ingredient for ice cream, employs 65 persons and last year reported annual sales of US$3 million.

Approximately 85 per cent of that figure was realised from exports to the Caribbean, North America and United Kingdom. The remainder was from local sales.

Since the start of this year, the company has acquired new markets in Sweden, Denmark and Belize which are expected to increase its sales and transform it from a cottage niche market business into an international gourmet brand.

“I would say we need, in three years, to be doing 10 times the production we’re doing now; and at the same time we’re developing new products,” John McFarlane, group development director for Walkerswood Partners Ltd, parent company of the processing plant, told the Observer Saturday.

“We’ll also be processing ackee and callaloo, whereas previously we had people pack them for us. So that we can have an outreach to our local farmers,” McFarlane said.

Earlier this year when Walkerswood was nominated for the Business Observer Business Leader Award, Managing Director Woodrow Mitchell spoke of the expansion plan. “As a company, we have to make a big decision to go for the crossover market,” he said. “If we go for the mass market we will not be able to produce enough to satisfy the demand. We are now struggling at the existing facilities to get products off to the market. We need to bring efficiency up.”

On Saturday, the governor-general described the ground-breaking as historic and urged Agriculture Minister Roger Clarke, who was in attendance, to consider Walkerswood’s achievements.

“When I fly over daily and see bamboo taking up some of the best banana lands that we have and great sugarcane lands lying fallow, I ask the question ‘why should we allow people to remain in Kingston, Spanish Town and Montego Bay, mendicants, not producing anything?’ I just ask the question and sincerely hope you’ll give a thought to it. We can produce anything,” Sir Howard said.

McFarlane told the Observer that the company would be adopting a new strategy as part of its overall marketing plan that would facilitate even more involvement of Walkerswood residents.

“We’ll have a tourist facility in that we’ll be able to accommodate the arrival of tour buses,” he explained. “First of all, they will see a model farm where we’ll demonstrate products that we use in our production — escallion, tomatoes, bananas, etc — in a planned farm. Then they will come into the factory itself to look at the production taking place.

“They will then exit the factory and go to our gift shop and what we’ll be promoting with the gift shop is local craft, particularly Walkerswood craft; people from our community who are highly skilled in wood turning, basketry, etc, and sell their things in our shop for much less mark-ups than what is common. We will also, of course, sell our own products.”

According to McFarlane, one of the aims is to have tourists become more familiar with the Walkerswood brand. “You never know who really comes — distributors in the food business maybe; but also, as importantly, we’ll be the venue for schools, community groups, etc to come so they can see some of the environmentally-friendly aspects this facility will offer,” he said.

The company has received several local and international awards over the years. Recently, the US magazine, Barbecue & Beverage, ranked Walkerswood’s barbecue sauce above prominent American brands like A1, Kraft, Thick & Spicy and Heinz 57.