Peak Bottling Company Limited, bottlers of Catherine's Peak pure spring water, has taken back full control of the distribution of its product, ending the partnership with Kingston Hub Distributors.
The new arrangement took effect July 1.
"It's just a rationalisation in how the distribution is now done," said Beverley Lopez, who owns Kingston Hub, and is also a major shareholder and director of Peak Bottling.
"We decided to combine resources to make it more efficient so we have consolidated and we now have everything under one roof," added David Wong, managing director of Peak Bottling.
Lopez, along with Charles Johnston and Tony Kelly, founded Peak Bottling Company some 17 years ago. Its current board comprises Bevon Francis as chairman, Lopez, Michael Bernard of Carreras, and John Rosen.
Change of plans
Lopez said Kingston Hub would turn its focus to other plans but declined to say what those were.
Prior to the change, both Peak Bottling and Kingston Hub shared in the distribution of the water product - Peak largely sold the 5-gallon bottles directly to offices and homes, while Kingston Hub serviced supermarkets and wholesale establishments.
"It was a business decision to bring the two together," said Wong.
With the new arrangement, Peak Bottling Company will cover the entire domestic distribution chain, with the help of sub-contractors Rica Trading in Drax Hall, Aquarius Distributors in Negril and Cari-Med Limited, which serves the north coast and the western side of Jamaica.
Additionally, Peak Bottling has contracted two new distributors outside of Jamaica, one in Antigua and the other in the Cayman Islands, with the aim of boosting its export market. The company sees opportunity in the Caricom trading bloc and is seeking additional distributors regionwide.
Catherine's Peak water is already sold in other Caribbean markets as well as the United Kingdom.
Tough competition
It exited the United States market two years ago because of its inability to compete.
"As a small company, we found that we were not as competitive as some of the North American companies who have economies of scale," said Wong.
Peak bottles pure spring water - sourced from the Blue Mountains - at its 3,000 square foot factory at Newcastle in St Andrew. Its water comes in seven sizes - five and one gallon bottles; five and 1.5 litres, eight ounce, and 500 and 600 millilitres.
The plant has also been recently upgraded to allow Peak Bottling to produce its own five-gallon packaging as well as some of the smaller bottles.
Peak also buys bottles from two local companies, Sweet Craft Limited and Poly Pet Company Limited.
But it plans to produce all its own bottles, eventually, Wong said.
Wong said a three gallon bottle will be added to the range but declined to say when, neither would he disclose the company's production volumes or sales.
sabrina.gordon@gleanerjm.com