Business View Caribbean - August/September 2018

36 37 Better water for your home, office and business. www.culliganjamaica.com by W.E.T. Jamaica Ltd. We specialize in Water Filtration & Treatment Solutions for residential, commercial and industrial applications. Whether your need is purified drinking water, water softening, ultra pure lab quality water or an off-grid solution, contact us first. needs. “Right now, the sugar cane that is avail- able to be converted to sugar with its molasses byproduct, is only half of our current require- ments,” he opines. “If I want to grow my busi- ness by double digits, I’m going to need more molasses. So, I would argue that one of the challenges that we currently face is not enough local molasses being available to the industry, which forces us to import. Not having adequate sugar cane limits the amount of available local molasses for production, and so, partly for this reason, in recent years, we have gone into the production of sugar cane as an experimental project.” The result of responding to that need has actually helped National Rums to develop a “green” protocol that is an environmental- ly-friendly, closed-loop system. “The sugar cane is grown and from the cane, sugar is produced,” Harrison notes. “The by-product is molasses. That molasses substrate is fermented and dis- tilled and turned into rum, and the by-product of that process is a liquid wash from our plant that, in turn, can be used to fertilize the sugar cane.” In a further attempt to become a greener company, Harrison says that National Rums is PREFERRED VENDOR n Culligan Wet Jamaica (W.E.T. Jamaica Limited) www.culliganjamaica.com NATIONAL RUMS OF JAMAICA, LTD. also examining how it utilizes the energy need- ed to run its distilleries. “We’re looking at our usage of fuel,” he says. “Solar is an option; liq- uefied natural gas is another option. They both allow for cleaner output and ensure that we are protecting the environment while reducing our carbon footprint.” Harrison adds that the government of Jamai- ca is cognizant of the industry’s supply problem and is actively seeking investments for the retooling and retraining of the country’s exist- ing sugar factories, as well as the re-equipping of small farmers to put more sugar cane into production. “It goes without saying that if I can get more local molasses, the local industry will do better,” he declares. “That’s more people working, more people producing, and a better standard of living for all concerned - improving our foreign exchange earnings and improving our gross domestic product.” “We are one of the oldest producers of rum on the island,” Harrison remarks, in conclusion. “We have been producing the finest quality rums which are exported to the rest of the world, including the largest beverage producers globally who use our rums in their formula- tions.When you taste our rum, you’re tasting the spirit of the island, the spirit of our people, the vibrancy, the flavorfulness – it’s all Jamai- can. Take a bottle of Monymusk rum out of Ja- maica and you have captured its ‘Jamaicaness.’”