Eight-month-old ice company Pure National Ice is already taking strides to become market leader with the establishment of a 1,000-square feet double-stack ice depot in Bogue, Montego Bay.

It’s the first execution in a number of expansion plans by the new company as Pure National seeks to increase its foothold across the island. The company is now investing $15 million to get the facility operational by the end of June.

“The hotel sector is a big player in our north-coast operations so in order to better service them, having a plant that stores 35,000 bags of ice is just an ideal situation for us,” sales and marketing manager of the company, David Walton told the Jamaica Observer in a round table interview on Monday.

“Not only hoteliers, but the club industry and the restaurants, especially in the tourist season. From December to March they will get an influx and are at 100 per cent occupancy, so it was necessary for us to be in there with the capacity to service customers,” he continued.

Currently, Pure National services Trelawny to Westmoreland with 2,500 bags of ice per day via its fleet of trucks. But with the opening up of the North South Highway, the company reckoned the establishment of the ice depot would create greater efficiencies for that belt of the island.

“Transportation to the north coast with the new highway has made it ideal for us to manufacture in Kingston and service our depot as well as customers on the north coast and so we really did not need a manufacturing outlet in Montego Bay,” he said.

According to Walton, the new facility will create employment for six individuals and service Trelawny, St James, Hanover and Westmoreland. The ice company now operates a manufacturing and distribution facility on Marcus Garvey Drive, Kingston, employing 21 individuals.

“What we now have in Kingston is the most modern ice manufacturing facility in the Caribbean. We are islandwide and we can say that we have at least 50 per cent of the market in the eight months we have been operating,” Walton told the

Business Observer.

“Our production is hands-free being total automatic form, fill and heat seal instead of stapling our packaged ice. To us, not all ice is equal and we believe we have the longest lasting ice on the market since our technology removes 99 per cent of bacteria, along with the chlorine and calcium during the filtration process that most promotes the melting of ice,” he explained.

Pure National produces 65 tonnes of ice per day, just enough to supply the market. In addition to its holding room and freezer bin, the company has capacity for 210 tonnes of ice. Walton noted that the company is working assiduously to reach profitability by 2017.

“We want to be market leader in less than 18 months, to be bold. We just have to get it done hence why we are doing the depot in Montego Bay,” Walton stated.

Last May, a small group of enterprising local and overseas entrepreneurs and professionals recognised the need for quality and service in the ice industry in Jamaica, and decided to take advantage of the opportunity to invest in a modern and efficient ice plant, with automated packaging for a product of superior quality manufactured under HACCP standards and the International Packaged Ice Quality Control Standards accredited by NSF International.

Pure National Ice currently services large manufacturing and food processing operations, the hotel and entertainment sectors, large special events, restaurants, institutions, and retail outlets including gas stations and supermarkets.