A shortage of white overproof rum that has been gripping the nation in recent months is not expected to be alleviated until early next year.

J Wray & Nephew Limited, which controls about 90 per cent of the white overproof rum market in Jamaica through its iconic Wray & Nephew white overproof and its Charley’s JB white overproof rum brands, has been having “issues with production” in recent times.

“It’s very simple and complex at the same time,” Jean-Philippe Beyer, former managing director of J Wray & Nephew Limited told the Jamaica Observer in late August. Beyer has since transitioned to the post of chairman at J Wray & Nephew.

“It’s the price of success. When you grow your brand, your rum brand in particular, to such an extent, and to the extent to which we have done that here in Jamaica, but also in the rest of the world, production capacity comes into play,” Beyer added.

J Wray & Nephew’s parent company, Italy-based Gruppo Campari bought the company for its rum portfolio — particularly Appleton Estate rums — with plans to make it amongst the top rums in the global market. That means boosting production to create volumes to realise that ambition. But rum is made from molasses, a by-product of sugar refining. To get the rum, the molasses is fermented and distilled, leaving behind a waste product called dunder, and there are laws governing how it can be disposed of to prevent environmental issues. In the past, the improper release of dunder in the rivers has been blamed for large fish kills, while it also emits a foul odour.

To deal with the dunder issue, the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA) has set guidelines which rum producers including J Wray & Nephew must follow. While some of the dunder is used back in the rum production process as a traditional flavour source, most is stored in huge ponds from which some are taken from time to time and diluted with water for use as a fertigator to provide nutrients to the sugarcane.

But, J Wray & Nephew in its quest to grow its rum sales globally, has been investing US$15 million ($2.4 billion) to boost production and with that, is also producing more dunder at a time when the ponds are full and cannot hold anymore of the waste material.

“What we have to do in that case is shut down the distillery; we can’t produce. That’s why we are having this problem,” Beyer pointed out.

Add to that, NEPA also stipulates when the fertigator can be used.

“When it rains and the land is too wet, we have to wait until it dries before the fertigation can be applied, so we have to store the dunder in the ponds we have, and they are full now,” Beyer continued.

He said the rains associated with Hurricane Beryl was a case in point in which J Wray & Nephew had to shut down rum production because the ponds storing the dunder were already full and the saturated soil meant none could be mixed for used as fertigator to create space.

“I know that it’s a problem because, again, rum is most of our business and we cannot produce now because of the weather. If it rains a lot, let’s say it rains for a week, the land gets wet for like another two weeks or three weeks…and that means it will be at least a month that you can’t produce.”

Seeing those challenges, Beyer said J Wray and Nephew decided to build a dunder treatment plant so that it can boost rum production while being responsible in treating the waste in line with environmental laws. It is spending US$65 million ($10.2 billion) on the treatment plant at its New Yarmouth Distillery in Clarendon, and when that is commissioned, it will go a far way in treating dunder so the company doesn’t have to shut down production when it has nowhere to store the waste.

“We started the project in New Yarmouth on the dunder treatment plant… and so we should be ready with that, I think, within Q1 next year. So after Q1 we should start to see some relief in to the production of the rum.” Q1 refers to the January to March period.

For now, he could not say how much production has been impacted immediately, but said competitors are benefiting from Wray & Nephew white overproof rum not being in the market.

“But [the impact] is quite a lot versus the demand, and it’s not like we have huge stock because the consumption is very good, the brand is very healthy. This brand has very high equity. People want it, they love it and again, we have grown here in Jamaica but also in the rest of the world, not only with white rum, but also with Appletion Estate,” the former managing director added.

It is not clear the impact the cutback in rum production will have on its Appleton Estate brand in the future. That is because the same distilled liquid used to make white overproof rum is also used to make Appleton Estate rum — the difference being that the white rum is mixed with water and filtrated before bottling for sale. The rest is blended and stored in barrels for five eight, 12, 15 or 21 years to make Appleton Estate rums which get their distinct colour from the aging process in the barrels. The age of the rum on the bottle refers to the youngest drop of rum in the blend. Beyer did not say how much is stored for Appleton and how much is used for white overproof rum.

But he said the company is putting aside more rum to age to produce Appleton.

“I have two choices, either I sell white rum or I put it in the barrel and I forget about it until [it is aged to a minimum standard] …. or I don’t put it in the barrel and sell it now, but then if I do that, then what happens to the rum I need in eight years, 21 years, etc, I won’t have it, and what we want to do is grow the business. With Appleton being the brand that we are pushing globally, the more we grow globally, the more we have to put in the barrel, the less white rum we have. That’s why the dunder treatment plant is so important because then we can increase capacity in production.”

He reiterated that the acquisition of J Wray & Nephew was driven by the push to get the Appleton brand. Now he said it is about “number three or four in the world”.

“While it’s growing in the right direction, again, the limitations of production makes it difficult to tell you exactly what it is because we probably lost some sales by not being able to produce as fast as we can,” he said.