THE Mavis Bank Coffee Factory (MBCF) said Friday it has signed an agreement with US-based Barnies Coffee and Tea Company to supply 100 per cent Blue Mountain coffee to the firm’s 40 stores in Florida.

According to a MBCF press release, the exclusive agreement is for roasting and distribution of the beans and was signed off recently by Senator Norman Grant, managing director of MBCF, and Barnie Philip Jones Jr, president of Barnies Coffee and Tea Company, headquartered in Orlando, Florida. The signing took place at the Mavis Bank Coffee Factory in Portland.

Senator Grant said the deal would help offset the falling demand for Jamaican coffee.

“The partnership is a timely one and a perfect fit as our major market in Japan has been affected by the global recession and therefore they have not purchased the same quantities as in the previous crop year,” Grant said, adding that the venture was a welcome lifeline to the company and the farmers who supply it.

He said MBCF had been “aggressively diversifying our markets and we have targeted the US as a major part of that thrust”.

Grant said that sales to the US market now represent 20 per cent of the company’s overall sales, up from one per cent when the company first ventured into that market. At that time some 99 per cent of its exports were to Japan.

“We are projecting to diversify our market to have sales to the US and other markets outside of Japan, representing 50 per cent of overall sales over the next five years,” he said.

In his remarks, Philip Jones said Barnies Coffee and Tea was proud to carry MBCF Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee and expressed his company’s commitment to work with Blue Mountain Coffee and MBCF to build the market in the US.

Jamaica’s Blue Mountain Coffee is regarded as a premium beverage on the world market and exports of the product earned the country US$33.9 million between January and October last year, a 31.9 per cent improvement over 2008 according to the Bank of Jamaica.