Do you know there are a lot of companies that serve as the backbone of Jamaica?
We are going to list 10 most important companies in Jamaica this 2017.
1. GraceKennedy
GraceKennedy is one of the Caribbean’s largest and most dynamic corporate entities. The company started in Jamaica in 1922 as a small trading establishment and wharf operator.
It has expanded and diversified over the years, changing from a privately owned enterprise to a public company listed on the stock exchanges of Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago.
Today, the GraceKennedy Group comprises a varied network of some 60 subsidiaries and associated companies located across the Caribbean and in North and Central America and the United Kingdom.
Its operations span the areas of food processing and distribution, banking and finance, insurance and remittance services, together with an investment in building materials retailing.
2. Jamaica Producers
Jamaica Producers Group (formerly the Jamaica Banana Producers Association Ltd) is a wholly Jamaican-owned company with a unique shareholder structure, which is the result of its equally unique history.
The company came into being on April 1, 1929 as a direct descendant of the Jamaica Producers Association formed in 1925, under which separate cooperatives—one for the marketing of each agricultural product—were set up. It had an initial membership of 6,145.
The company was formed with the courageous objective of protecting the Cooperative and the local banana industry from demise owing to fierce competition from the large foreign-owned fruit companies in the shipping and marketing of Jamaican bananas.
It has since grown from strength to strength, diversifying into shipping, a related support businesses, and moving up the value chain to provide processed foods like smoothies, banana chips and juices.
