Salada Foods Jamaica producers of Mountain Peak coffee want to acquire Mavis Bank Coffee Factory Limited (MBCF), which produces rival brand Jablum, in order to become the largest exporter of Blue Mountain Coffee.

Salada revealed its bid for MBCF in a Business Observer interview following its annual general meeting.

The acquisition of MBCF would reduce Salada’s dependence on locally driven sales. However Salada isn’t the only company bidding for MBCF.

“We are talking to them. There are several interested parties I am told and we are one of them. But we want to invest in it in some way,” Salada chairman John Bell told the Observer on Monday at the Wyndham Hotel in Kingston.

Salada is virtually debt free (long term loans at nil) with a net worth of $536.4 million.

Bell explained that only five per cent of its sales were export driven (mainly to the US and Caribbean). The acquisition would boost sales to Japan which traditionally consumes 90 per cent of Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee.

Salada’s core business is the production and supply of instant Jamaican coffee but the arguable maturation of that market has led the company to seek new revenue streams. Salada began coffee processing since 1958 and was listed on the Jamaica Stock Exchange in 1969.

Salada and MBCF have the largest coffee processing plants for instant coffee and Blue Mountain coffee respectively. MBCF is located in the Blue Mountains of Jamaica and sells a variety of roasted products under its signature Jablum label.

The Development Bank of Jamaica Limited (DBJ) extended the deadline for the submission of bids for the privatisation of Government’s interest in the MBCF to March 2011, in order to facilitate the “overwhelming interest by potential investors”, said the DBJ in a release. Government is seeking investors to undertake the financing, development, operation and management of the business.

Salada’s year-end net profit dipped some 25 per cent year on year to $81.4 million from $426.3 million in turnover as at September 2010 . Bell blamed the global recession.

“We were adversely affected by ever rising prices of our main manufacturing input, green beans, as well as increases in energy costs as a result of increasing world oil prices throughout the year,” stated Bell in his chairman’s statement accompanying financials. “We expect next year to be as challenging as this year. There is no predictability in sight for the worldwide recession. There is no consensus among economic pundits on this subject.”

Bell concluded that Salada intends to increase its “forays into export markets”.