by Marlon Madden
Some of those who benefit from sugarcane production here are calling for ramped up efforts on the part of authorities to restructure the sugarcane industry and allow the island to start earning premium income from more value-added products.
Top rum producers in Barbados agreed that while they were no experts on the sugarcane industry, it could do with the same business model being employed in their industry in order to earn the island more foreign exchange.
What is more, Larry Warren, owner of the
St Nicholas Abbey Plantation House and Rum Distillery, is proposing that the restructuring of the sugarcane industry includes the ramping of syrup production from the sugarcane to be used in the making
of rum alongside the more popular molasses.
He explained that by doing this, those who rely solely on molasses at the moment would not have to worry “about if a shipment of molasses is of low quality or is not properly shipped or maintained”. “It has been proven that a certain percentage of molasses with syrup can maintain the flavour profile of molasses rum just because of the potency of the molasses.
What you do is you use the syrup, which is a very benign type of flavour profile in comparison [to molasses], to raise the sugars. So, you would need less molasses and therefore we could use our sugarcanes to produce syrup for the rum industry,” Warren explained.
St Nicholas Abbey makes all of its rum from a syrup created from the sugarcane, also known as “sugar cane honey”. Warren said he believed this was the direction in which the industry should be heading.
“The whole point is that sugar takes about 40 per cent more energy to make than syrup. Syrup embodies everything about the sugarcane plant so you can still make sugar from it, but the wonderful thing is that we now can sell our syrup from our sugarcane fields to produce rum, which is a premium product. So rather than selling it at a low cost in sugar we can sell it at a high cost in syrup. And, of course, the cost of actually making it is less than sugar,” he explained.
“The beautiful thing is that if we could get to the perfect balance of producing a little molasses and a lot of syrup, we will produce enough sugar to supply the island and at the same time produce enough molasses mixed with the syrup to sustain the entire rum industry,” he added.
Warren, who is a director of the Barbados Sugar Industry Ltd., argued that the syrup produced could also be exported at a premium price while the bagasse from the sugarcane would be used to produce energy, creating “a win-win situation if Barbados was to go that direction”.
“I had proposed this concept of syrup and that has gone to a certain point to government but I don’t think it has gone any further.
It is a comprehensive plan that involved energy production, syrup and molasses production and sugar production in an amount to sustain what we need as an island,” said the distiller.
Government is in the process of restructuring the sugarcane industry, hoping to create more value-added.Managing Director of Mount Gay Distilleries Ltd.
Raphaël Grisoni said he was not opposed to the idea of some rum producers using the sugarcane syrup, but quickly told Today’s BUSINESS that was not an option for Mount Gay.
“After all the origin and history of Barbados rum is molasses based so we [Mount Gay] need to keep those characteristics that make us easily identifiable by the consumers,” said Grisoni.
He agreed, however, there were several opportunities for Barbados to have a more sustainable sugarcane industry, adding that “the same way there is an opportunity for super premium rum, I think there are :opportunities also in the sugar sector for added value sugars”.
Stating that the country had the requisite talent, land space and other necessary assets to pull it off, Grisoni said it was a matter of the relevant officials coming together to iron out the details and inviting potential investors to take part.
Recalling that Barbados sugar used to attract a premium price decades ago, Grisoni said “I think it is legitimate now to go back to that and I know that you have lots of consumers looking for sugar from origin, not bulk sugar. I am sure there is business opportunity with high-value sugar in the same way we have consumers looking for organic sugar. Why not transform the industry into an organic sugar industry calling for a higher price?”
Insisting that it was about time that Barbados “get out of this old model where the value is made somewhere else and bring back the value in Barbados”, Grisoni added: “We are not going to produce millions of tonnes of sugar . . . but small and beautiful high quality. I believe in that.
That will bring added value and it will make our industry sustainable and for the benefit of the community because we would help to keep the whole agriculture sector active and we need that”.
Meanwhile, Master Distiller and owner of Foursquare Rum Distillery and Heritage Park Richard Seale said he agreed that the production of sugarcane syrup for making rum was “something that could be explored”.
He also called for greater focus on creating more premium products from the Barbados sugarcane instead of just bulk sugar and molasses. Pointing out that Barbados was a high-cost jurisdiction, Seale said it made sense to produce value added products that could attract a premium cost.
“The rum industry has survived where the sugar industry had not because the rum industry was able to value-add. In other words, it was able to move past making basic commodity. Sugar has only tried to make a bulk commodity,” said Seale.
marlonmadden@barbadostoday.bb
