JAMAICA’S sole rolled oats manufacturer is sounding the alarm on a flood of unregulated imports it says are choking local production and threatening the future of the Foska brand.

Plastic bags of bulk oats sold without labels, nutritional facts or health inspections are now a common sight in corner shops and wholesale stores in downtown Kingston, which Products Managing Director Christopher Ramson says are undercutting Caribbean Foods Limited’s business by as much as 30 per cent. Still, he adds that the issue goes beyond lost sales, as the unlabelled products raise broader concerns about food safety and consumer rights.

“What they’re doing is buying in 25-kilo bags and selling it by the pound in plastic, unlabelled bags,” Ramson told the Jamaica Observer in an exclusive interview. “There’s no health and safety standard, no accountability. And it’s being sold alongside properly packaged products like ours that have to meet all the regulations.”

Foska is the only brand in Jamaica that produces rolled oats from raw imported grain — cooking, rolling, flaking and packaging it at its Spanish Town, St Catherine-based factory. Other brands sold locally, such as Grace and Lasco, repackage imported oats while brands like Quaker and Jollsom’s Avena are brought in fully processed.

Ramson was quick to clarify that his concern is not with authorised distributors or legitimate repackagers of branded oats.

“They go through third-party audits, they meet health and safety standards, they label their products. That’s how it should be,” he said. “But what we’re dealing with now is a completely different level of exposure — people selling bulk product out of bags, no oversight, no compliance.”

Labelled bagged oats produced by various brands typically weigh between 185 and 230 grams and retail for up to $250, depending on the size. But in downtown Kingston, retailers target consumers looking to stretch their dollar with one pound oats (roughly 454 grams) sold loose and unlabelled for $135. Foska’s fighter is its 185 gram bag oats which retails at $159.

For perspective, a pound of loose oats offers nearly twice the quantity of a typical branded bag, and at a significantly lower price, making it a hard deal for many consumers to ignore despite the lack of labelling or health checks.

But in an effort to maintain market share, Caribbean Foods made changes of its own. Traditionally, Foska oats were sold in a double-layer format, a bag inside a printed box. However, with price-sensitive consumers increasingly reaching for cheaper alternatives, the company introduced a smaller, printed bag format to bring the product closer in line with what shoppers could afford.

“In an effort to get more competitive, we reduced the packaging,” Ramson told the Business Observer. “The price point of the printed bag is a little more affordable to those that aren’t picking up the box. We’re still not as competitive as the pound oats, but it’s a little closer, and it does well for us.”

Adding to the concern is the low import duty — currently five per cent — on rolled oats, which Ramson says does little to protect domestic processing.

“Some of the same suppliers we buy raw materials from in Canada and Chile are also shipping finished product into Jamaica,” he said. “With their economies of scale and our minimal duty, they can land it here far cheaper than we can produce it.”

To address the issue, Caribbean Foods has formed an internal committee and hired a consultant to help gather data and prepare formal submissions to government agencies. The company is engaging with the Jamaica Manufacturers and Exporters Association and the Ministry of Industry, Investment and Commerce to press for tighter regulation and stronger safeguards, including adjustments to the Common External Tariff (CET). The CET is a unified system of tariffs applied by all Caricom (Caribbean Community) member states on goods imported from outside the region, that is designed to protect regional industries and promote economic integration by ensuring that all member countries charge the same import duties on goods from non-member countries.

But changing the CET isn’t simple. “You have to prove that you can supply not just Jamaica, but the entire Caricom region,” Ramson explained. “And we can. We’re not limited by capacity, we’re limited by proper policing of the industry.”

In the meantime, Caribbean Foods has been quietly preparing for expansion to fulfill its regional ambitions. The company has already completed engineering drawings for a major plant upgrade that would replace its decades-old horizontal layout with a modern, vertical-processing system.

The redesign would significantly increase efficiency, increase the company’s physical footprint, and open the door to 24-hour operations. However, the investment — estimated to be north of US$2 million — is on hold. The company is uncertain it can generate the sales volumes needed to justify the upgrade while bulk imports continue to undercut prices.

The planned expansion involves building upward on the existing property, which spans approximately 12,000 square feet. To accommodate the new configuration the company would need to temporarily relocate its warehouse operations further north on the site before reconnecting with the updated production line.

At the centre of the upgrade is a new set of processing equipment that Ramson says would triple current capacity.

“That’s the smallest size available with today’s technology,” he said. “It’s a major step, but we’re ready if the market conditions allow for it.”

While the production overhaul is central to the company’s vision, Caribbean Foods is also exploring complementary product lines that align with its core oats offerings. Ramson noted that the groundwork has already been laid for diversification but said it makes little sense to pursue new ventures when the existing business is being undercut by informal trade.

Factory worker Lamar Newell stacks boxes of Foska Oats at Caribbean Foods’ facility in Spanish Town. The company, Jamaica’s only rolled oats manufacturer, is fighting to maintain its market share amid a surge in cheap, unregulated bulk imports.(Photos: Garfield Robinson )