Coffee Mill of Jamaica is scaling back whilst Rituals Coffee the Trinidad-based 91-unit chain will open this weekend in Kingston.

“We are not closing the cafe per se,” said Patrick Sibbles proprietor of the Coffee Mill which began three decades ago.

The company will this month move its head office and cafe located on Barbados Avenue in New Kingston, and open a new Coffee Mill cafe in December “under a licenced arrangement”. The cafe will also be located in New Kingston.

“We are moving because the entire building is being rented to one individual,” said Sibbles whose brand is amongst the longest running cafes in Jamaica.

“I would not want to comment on who is moving in.”

A subsidiary of GraceKennedy’s financial division will rent the building presently occupied by Coffee Mill according to an informed source. But up to print Grace was not available for comment to confirm or deny the source’s claim.

Currently, the New Kingston cafe is the only Coffee Mill in operation, but it previously operated cafes in New Kingston, both national airports and a cafe in China which cost US$250,000 to set-up. Last year, Sibbles planned to establish another cafe in China but those plans did not materialise. He blamed the harsh business climate in Jamaica along with successive hurricanes which crippled coffee supply for his stores.

“The coffee market is very challenging. Our challenge is that we don’t have a farm to supply us with green beans,” said Sibbles whose roasting operations in part fuels the cafe.

“Back to back to back hurricanes destroyed about 80 per cent of our production.”

This month the coffee regulator, Coffee Industry Board (CIB) stated that drought had cut coffee production by a third and was threatening the industry’s survival. It however added that it had the positive effect of stabilising the price ceiling of Jamaican coffee, hurt by a cut in global demand. The crisis, however, is not yet reflected in coffee export earnings which are up 51.1 per cent between January to July 2009 at US$29.8 million when compared with the same period last year based on Bank of Jamaica data.

Coffee continues to outperform most other exports hurt by economic downturn.

Coffee Mill’s move from its head office on Barbados Avenue is however symbolic as it occurs in the same month that Rituals will open in Jamaica.

“We will be having a soft opening this weekend,” said Samantha Phillipson, operations Manager at Rituals Jamaica in an written response to Caribbean Business Report queries.

“Please come and enjoy a delicious cup of freshly brewed Blue Mountain coffee with us and one of our delicious menu items.”

Rituals already has over 90 regional outlets. Sibbles said that Rituals will be supplied with Jamaican coffee.

“Whoever they made arrangements with for the supply of coffee, I am happy for them,” stated Sibbles who maintained that his brand is superior.

The Kim Clarke-led Maritime and Services Limited (MSL) has obtained the franchise for Jamaica. They will open their Kingston store in the bustling Village Plaza, and sources say the second store will be in Montego Bay. Rituals will become the 15th cafe or equivalent in the capital city including: three Cannonball cafes; two Cafe Blue, two Susie’s, a Coffee Mill, Jablum (Norman Manley Airport); Häagen-Dazs. Also cafes exist in the Half-Way-Tree Transport Centre, the Hilton and Pegasus hotels and the National Gallery of Jamaica. Most were opened within the last five years.

Ice coffee, lattes and cappuccinos are priced between $120-600 at these cafes. But shop-by-shop, these local and now regional cafes are building a gourmet culture that never existed in Jamaica, a country ironically renowned for its coffee.