An edited version of the address by Matthew Lyn, group CEO of Caribbean Broilers, at the unveiling of the company’s air-chill poultry processing plant in Hill Run, St Catherine, on January 15, 2025.

‍

On Friday, August 18, 2017 we broke ground right here where you sit on a new concept, design, and location we named “The Nest”. Back then we called it a Hybrid Growth Centre. Today, we use a term to be more in keeping with international practices — Eco-Industrial Park.

We shared our dream to grow our business, develop the poultry industry, and impact the country in a very specific way. We spoke about building something so special that it would inspire the next generation to do better, live better, and be better. A destination that schoolchildren could visit and see first-hand that there are more career choices than being a doctor or lawyer. How about a plant operator, controller, architect, engineer, or farmer?

We were excited, proud, deliberate, and ambitious. Perhaps we were overly ambitious, a little naïve. I’m trying to avoid saying that we were outright crazy!

What we thought would have taken two-plus years actually took close to six. Reality set in early and fast. The first two years were spent securing the necessary permits. This wasn’t a housing scheme, office building, shopping plaza, gas station, or even just one factory. This was, 450,000 square feet of building, three kilometers of internal roads, a power plant, steam plant, a water treatment plant and, oh…right, an air-chilled chicken plant, which no one in Jamaica had ever heard of before.

Meeting after meeting, site visits, studies, reports, submission of applications, submission of drawings, submission of plans, followed by resubmission of the submissions (if you know, you know). It took us much, much longer than expected to get the go-ahead for this project.

We were bruised, but not broken, and when we finally got the green light and started construction in late 2019, we said, “It’s okay, we’ll power through and still get this done in good time.”

But then, a few weeks later, March 2020, Jamaica declared its first case of COVID-19. We had more than two dozen companies from over a dozen countries collaborating to achieve the unachievable — navigating between global lockdowns, restrictive travel policies, and quarantine rules. Plus, the global logistics crisis and parts availability issues made for another two years of living hell.

We were physically tired, mentally fatigued, and completely frustrated. But we still believed.

And then, just as the world started recovering from COVID-19 in 2022, real disaster struck. Our old chicken plant in Kingston had the most catastrophic breakdown in the company’s history. Long past the time we expected to move from the old plant, a key piece of machinery said, “No more!”

We weren’t yet ready to move to the new plant. Our equipment wasn’t fully installed, our people weren’t fully trained, but we had no choice; we had to find a way. So we separated the construction zone from the “food safe” zone and this meant that the speed of construction again slowed to a crawl.

Our days bled into nights, our operations were a mess, our quality went to the dogs, our reputation was shot. Many customers, for very good reason, left us. It was, perhaps, the lowest point in our company’s history.

But little by little, we got better. Step by step, day by day, methodically, strategically. A tweak here, a failure there, another try. We learnt. We restructured. We changed course. We found new ways. We survived.

Today, we are breaking production records on a regular basis.

So before I say anything else about this facility behind me or anything about what this facility means for the future, I need to take this moment to say thank you to every single person who stood by us during our time of need. Thank you to our dedicated, loyal, and compassionate customers who knew we needed help and did not turn us away. There are too many of you for me to say by name, but you know who you are. We will not forget you.

Thank you to our integrated contract growers who worked equally as hard to manage birds over 80 days old and weighing 10 lb — twice the norm. You are true partners; we appreciate you and we couldn’t do this without you.

Thank you to so many of our suppliers who became part of our solution. The relationship is never taken for granted and does not go unnoticed. Thank you to public health and all the regulators who helped us to work through the pain and worked side by side with us for long days, long nights, and long weekends.

But most of all, thank you to our incredible CB team that gave, gave, gave, and continue to give their all to fulfil the dream we had at the very beginning of this project. Without all of you, we would not be having this ceremony here today. And there are a few of our outstanding production team in the audience this morning that I would like to recognise — thank you.

And while I am cautious to call names for fear of who I may forget, it is impossible not to single out these three gentlemen, who we truly could not have completed this project without — Cleous McCalla, Caleb Kelly, and Audley Raymore. People will never know the sacrifices you have made, and I want to publicly say thank you for everything you have done.

THE POULTRY INDUSTRY

It’s often mistaken that an industry is simply made up of the producers of that good, not considering the connectivity, dependency, and interdependency of the many players along the entire value chain.

Many people mistakenly believe that the poultry industry is simply made up of the CB Group and Jamaica Broilers — and I will take a moment to acknowledge Mr Robert Levy, chair of the Jamaica Broilers Group, who is in attendance.

The Nest was never intended to be for CB’s benefit only. Everything we have done here has been in the interest of our industry and country first, so I’m appreciative of you being here to show your support. We may ferociously compete for shelf space in supermarkets, wholesales, hotels, and restaurants, but every time I see an article about JB’s expansion in the US or export to another island, I am cheering you on because it brings foreign exchange to Jamaica. You are expanding and creating jobs while securing a base for our Jamaican industry to compete on a global scale. Kudos to you and your team.

Most people think there are only two players in the industry without properly contemplating and understanding the role of the policymakers who create the playing field: the input suppliers, who make or break you, like the financial sector or energy sector or primary producers, in our case, farmers. If the financial institutions won’t finance you, you have no industry. If you don’t have stable energy, clean water, etc, you have no industry. In agriculture, without the farmers there is no industry and, of course, if the distributors, customers, marketers, and consumers don’t buy into your product or service, no matter how good you think your product is, there is no industry.

We have seen and learnt that a break at any point in this chain has an impact on the whole chain. We saw it during COVID-19. When it comes to food and agriculture, an industry is from policy to plate and everything in-between. So governments, suppliers, competitors, customers, consumers, we rise and fall together.

The reverse must also be true, that when the industry is doing well it means all its members along the value chain are also benefiting from the industry’s growth.

And grow we have. The Jamaican poultry industry has grown from producing approximately 70 million kgs in 2003 to 110 million kgs in 2013 and 137 million in 2023. In 20 years, the poultry industry has almost doubled in size and the majority of that growth, probably close to 40 per cent, has actually come from the estimated 100,000 plus small backyard farmers who grow just a few hundred chickens at a time, not from the two integrated producers.

Now, what can we reasonably expect from this landmark investment.

THE FUTURE

We named this facility The Nest because we said this is where our future would be born. By definition a Nest is a place that fosters rapid growth, development; an incubator of innovation; a home.

For years we planned and ideated and dreamt, but The Nest is where all this potential would be unlocked. Where dreams become reality.

Today, we’ll concentrate on just three:

1. The air-chill plant

This lays the foundation for Jamaica to become a net exporter of chicken in less than 10 years, and if all the stars align, it could be closer to five years. Consider that only five out of the G8 countries have that designation and only 11 of the G20 fit that bill.

Like we do in track and field and so many other categories, we little but we tallawah, and we punch well above our weight class.

This means that Jamaica is on a path to grow past the level of self-sufficiency, a major milestone for food security. We can also start filling the gap for other Caribbean islands that import from extra-regional countries. Today, that gap is close to US$200 million.

And here I’d like to acknowledge Mrs Nisa Surujbally, the executive director of the Caribbean Poultry Association, who came in just for this function. The CPA is a regional body that promotes the development of poultry industries across the Caribbean, and over the past 25 years it has been integral in developing, what is today, the Caribbean’s largest and most impactful agro-industry.

Jamaica — a net exporter of chicken by 2035; if not well before. I like it!

Consider the effect on productivity, foreign exchange earnings, employment and GDP [gross domestic product].

2. Unlocking agricultural investment

The air-chill plant will be the catalyst to unlock billions of dollars more of investment into the agricultural sector, first via the poultry industry, but then related industries like pork and dairy, and the agriculture sector on a whole.

Let me recognise the teams from NCB and JMMB who are here and were the financing partners of this project. Thank you for believing in our vision. Agriculture is a sector that needs time and space and you both provided us with that.

Let me also recognise our executive team, and especially Mr Garth Channer, our CFO [chief financial officer], who unfortunately does not have a money tree in his backyard, but who diligently, year after year, put aside money for this plant. For over 10 years we saved just to make the deposit.

And let me share with all the financial institutions present here today: This is just the beginning. Get ready, because more agricultural investors are coming, and they will need your financing.

Within CBG, the growth in the processing plant is already forcing us to expand our hatchery operations and our feed mill, and this has a positive impact on the many other related industries that rely on the chicken infrastructure — whether that be table eggs, pork, beef, dairy, goat, or sheep.

However, the more impactful growth is the expansion in our contract grower network. Over the next two years alone, just to be in line with our domestic growth plans, it will require $2.5 billion in investment in poultry houses by our contract growers. And by the time we get to the net exporter position, it will be multiples of that.

You may notice that I never refer to these men and women as small farmers. They are not small by any means, they are our partners in this industry, and they have serious capital tied up in their operations. They choose farming and they choose poultry.

Our newest integrated grower just put up three houses a few weeks ago where more than $400 million has been invested thus far. These investments don’t usually make the news, but ironically, it could qualify for the Junior Stock Exchange. These men and women are business owners, employers, community leaders, and investors, and there are upwards of 150 of these investors in the poultry industry.

Just about every contract grower grows more than chicken. Whether it be oranges, pineapples, limes, pigs, cattle, goats, sugar, peppers. While chicken may be their base, they farm many other things and go into many other business ventures.

And investment won’t stop with our growers, as our need for packaging, raw materials, services, storage, distribution, and haulage grows, so will the participation in this industry by other small business owners and entrepreneurs.

Again, if all goes to plan, The Nest will continue to unlock investment in agriculture, well beyond today. In fact, I hate to tell you all this, but if all goes to plan, I’m going to invite you all back out here in another few years to do this all over again for another processing facility.

3. Unlocking and fostering a new mindset

The point I’m most excited about: The Nest will unlock the mindset of the next generation and how they see agriculture.

We think of agriculture as a last resort. We think of agriculture as the “what left”. Our best and brightest minds aren’t generally pushed into this field.

But today, I hope people will see that agriculture is not just for small farmers; agriculture is big business too. Agriculture is cool. Agriculture is sexy. And if you’re a young student, budding businessman or woman who wants to change the world, start with what we eat.

Remember, before there was an Industrial Revolution, there was an Agrarian Revolution. We had to figure out how to feed ourselves first before we could think about developing machinery, factories, and manufactured goods. Today, the G8 still controls 80 per cent of the agricultural trade in the world. Do you think this is by accident?

Today, we open our viewing gallery to the public. It will give you a sneak peak of how we will conduct tours of the plant to help change this mindset.

I would like to recognise Mr Mark Haskins, our former CEO, who played a pivotal role in CB Group’s overall development, introduced us to the concept of air-chill, and was the brainchild of the viewing gallery.

The new minister of education isn’t here today, but I’m sure she’ll be happy to know that every single school child in Jamaica is invited to take a tour of our facility. We have nothing to hide, we’re very proud of what we do and we’re happy to expose our youth to modern, climate-smart, sustainable agriculture.

To our customers, financial partners, industry partners, and government bodies, that invitation extends to you as well. If you’d like to include your teams, just give us a call. We’ll be happy to schedule you in.

And Prime Minister, I apologise for having to put you on the spot, but I think you’re the only one who can help me here. Our actual tour will showcase more than the air-chill plant, we’ll show the entirety of The Nest, including the Hill Run farms, our training facility, and harvest hub where we will plant 500 acres of ackee, breadfruit, and coconut, and in this tour show how agriculture, industry, and environment can co-exist and thrive together in a circular approach.

Let’s change the minds of the future generations. Let’s attract major investors to put their capital in Jamaica to invest in many more factories like this… begging a good road, Sir. Please.

If we can unlock the minds of our students, our trading partners, and our potential investors, Jamaican agriculture will be forever transformed, and our entire country will be the better for it.

Let’s change our mindset. Agriculture is big business.

‍

Source: https://www.jamaicaobserver.com/2025/01/24/bruised-not-broken/

‍

‍

‍