MANDEVILLE, Manchester — Motoring through at reasonable speed one could easily miss the relatively small factory at the base of Shooters Hill in Central Manchester not far from the mothballed Windalco Kirkvine alumina plant.

It is actually home to Pickapeppa Sauce, which is among Jamaica’s most famous and savoured brands.

Pickapeppa is also among the island’s most successful enterprises — netting average annual profits of approximately US$1.5 million, mostly from exports to the United States.

Anxious to ensure their product remains competitive in an increasingly complex global market, the management of the 90-year-old family business is now within weeks of gaining international certification as a food processor and exporter.

As Pickapeppa general manager Diana Tomlinson tells it, the company has been working towards Hazard Analysis Critical Point (HACCP) certification for the past “three or four years” spending millions to improve due diligence capacity and infrastructure including space expansion and modern machinery.

HACCP certification is increasingly required of food producers, processors and exporters as a means of assuring that such products satisfy safety standards.

In the case of Pickapeppa, which exports 95 per cent of its products, such certification is now imperative given the signing into law of the Food Safety Modernisation Act (FSMA) by United States President Barack Obama back in January. The FSMA requires among other things that by 2012, all processed foods entering the United States must be tested by an accredited laboratory.

From a US perspective the new law seeks to ensure food is safe by shifting the focus of federal regulators from responding to contamination to preventing it.

Pickapeppa managing director Stephen Lyn Kee Chow, whose family has owned the company since 1945, said in the current circumstances, expecting to be a sustainably successful food-processing exporter without modern certification is a non-starter.

“Without HACCP, exporting to any country out of Jamaica, we’re going to have some serious problems full stop,” Lyn Kee Chow told Sunday Finance during a recent tour of the factory, led by Industry, Investment and Commerce Minister Christopher Tufton.

“I do a lot of exporting and I can tell you, without it (HACCP) the doors are going to be closing full stop,” Lyn Kee Chow added.

Tufton, who in his previous job as Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries consistently preached the importance of certification and standardisation for food exporters, argued that the fact that a brand such as Pickapeppa is only just gaining HACCP certification should sound alarm bells.

“This company is 80 plus years old, is extremely successful and has a brand that commands tremendous respect in the international market place,” the Minister reminded journalists.

“As regards to manufacturerers and local exporters, I want to raise an alarm for companies that are producing/exporting to recognise the need to establish standards and to be certified in order to continue to compete in those international markets,” he added.

Tufton said checks with the Jamaica Exporters Association (JEA) had suggested that less that “less than 20 per cent of their membership who are currently exporting food items into the US market are actually certified”.

He argued that “if this law (FSMA) is strictly enforced effective 2012 then what you are going to find is that a number of companies currently exporting will not be allowed to export. It will have significant implications for the export trade, manufacturing, jobs and for the competitiveness of local entities…”

As part of the drive to avert a crisis, Tufton subsequently announced at a news conference in Kingston that agro-processing exporters to the United States will benefit from a special loan facility from the EXIM Bank with interest rates ranging from 6.5 to seven per cent. The loan facility which will be worth $100 million initially is aimed at facilitating the process of export certification, including assessments and purchase of tools and equipment.

Tufton reportedly said that the Bureau of Standards and the Ministry of Industry would assist in various ways including inspection and training. Those companies that are already certified will also be asked to assist uncertified companies to complete the certification process, Tufton reportedly said.

Lyn Kee Chow, whose company produces a line of exotic products including the flagship Pickapeppa Sauce as well as a hot pepper and hot mango sauce, spice mango sauce and gingery mango sauce, does not believe certification means smooth sailing.

For one thing, he says, the government can do much more in terms of providing “a level playing field” for producers and exporters and in ensuring that there is policy continuity and stability without “the rules of the game” being changed mid stream.

But he believes that with international certification and the “right policy options”, the sky can be the limit for companies like Pickapeppa which currently employs 42 people and buys 80 per cent of its raw materials including pepper, pimento and ginger from farmers in Manchester, Clarendon and St Elizabeth.