Minister of Tourism Edmund Bartlett says investment and innovation are what’s needed to take Jamaica’s coffee industry to the next level.
Speaking on MoneyMovesJa, Bartlett said that Jamaica has only scratched the surface of the potential of its coffee industry.
“We need to benefit from the value chain of coffee. It is very lucrative that we have not been capturing the full potential of it,” he said.
“For example, 80% of the coffee bean is wasted after it is converted into powder. We do have the opportunity to take that 80% and turn it into a whole set of cottage industries,” he added.
Bartlett made the declaration during the 6th staging of the annual Jamaica Blue Mountain
Coffee Festival on March 25.
The Minister said that Jamaica is uniquely positioned to capitalize on this industry since Jamaica’s iconic Blue Mountain Coffee has already been established as a premium brand.
“Coffee is one of the most consumed liquids in the world and Jamaica is recognised as having one of the premium brands of coffee,” he said.
He noted that some small businesses have begun to tap into the value-added coffee industry with the creation of coffee candles, body scrubs, deodorants, etc.
Bartlett said that the Tourism Linkage Network was established to help small and medium-sized tourism businesses to expand these offerings.
“We had three objectives in developing this strategy. One was to expand the capacity to build new and better products. The second was to provide funding to allow those products to be upscaled and for the use of technology,” he explained.
The Minister said that the third objective is providing marketing opportunities for businesses to showcase their products.
“This coffee festival is a marketing outlet and is an opportunity for us to bring people from all walks of life to see what the products are, to have an interest in acquiring a part of it and most importantly to consume it,” he said.
“Because tourism is a consume drive product.. That’s all the tourist does, he travels to consume and consume. So the more products you have for consumption is the more your dollar will stay in your destination,” he added.
