Bigga Manufacturers Add Spring Water

Jamaica Drink Company (JDC) manufacturer of the Bigga brand of soft-drink has invested $180 million in plant expansion that the firm says has allowed its entry into Jamaica's half a billion dollar a year bottle water market.

The investment has also doubled the production capacity at the Whitemarl, St Catherine plant, enabling the company to keep up with the growing demand for its Bigga brand.
"We are happy with the expansion... we could not keep up with our growth in demand," Francois Chalifour, general manager of JDC told the Sunday Observer. "The objective of the expansion programme will be two-fold - to meet our increased demand, and to offer new products."

The new product is a spring water called Watta, packaged in a 600 ml pet bottle, which Chalifour hopes will capture a sizeable per cent of the Jamaican market within a year.
"Water is the fastest growing beverage in Jamaica today, growing between 20-30 per cent a year, with sales of between $30 - 40 million a month," said Chalifour.
One of the marketing strategies, according to Chalifour will be aggressive pricing - with the company taking advantage of its efficient production line and lower production cost to underprice the competition.

"We believe we can" he stressed, "because our cost structure is lower than the competitors. They are mainly small manufacturers who are constrained by higher overheads. We can sell water at a truer price to the consumer."
The water, sourced from an underground spring in St Catherine will retail for between $14 and $16, or 35-45 per cent less than what Chalifour estimates to be the average price of similar volume product on the local market.
"We expect Watta to comprise 10 per cent of total company sales in the coming year," said Chalifour.

The investors hope that the new plant which was completed in July will push the expansion of the six-year-old company way beyond the current annual growth rate of 25 per cent.

(Observer)