30 October 2015 - Business View Caribbean
ing Wire. The nail factory’s thirty-two nail machines
produce approximately 200,000 lbs. of wire nails per
month.
“We’re also big in cement,” says Barnes. “We’re the
largest distributor, outside of the local producers, of
cement in the country.” ARC has a production arrange-
ment with the Caribbean Cement Company: it pro-
duces the cement and ARC puts in its own bags, and
distributes it. “We do about 120,000 tons of cement
annually. That’s a massive chunk of our business,” he
adds.
Another one of ARC’s business units is its Lumber
Treatment Plant - a $400 million, state-of the-art facil-
ity, which it launched in 2013. The plant is the first of
its kind in Jamaica. It not only cuts and converts lum-
ber into different products, sizes, and dimensions, it
contains a pressurized cylinder, into which lumber can
be automatically loaded in order to be treated with the
chemical preservatives that protect the wood from ter-
mites and fungal decay. “We are one of the big three in
the distribution of lumber in the country,” says Barnes,
“but we also do our own treatment of lumber. By vir-
tue of where we are in the tropics, Jamaica is exposed
to the elements – weather, insects, etc. Approximately
85 percent of the wood that is used in Jamaica has to
go through a treatment process.”
ARC has also been in the roofing business since day
one, offering its customers circular and industrial-pro-
file metal sheeting. Today, the company’s former, zinc-
coated steel has been updated to the new global stan-
dard of aluminum-zinc-coated steel sheeting, called
Galvalume. ARC’s suite of Painted Metal Roofing Tiles
not only resists rust, they help to repel the heat as-
