The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

A Bahamian-owned beer manufacturer yesterday said it has been able to achieve “tremendous” cost savings on its 55-60 per cent bottle returns via a recycling initiative.

Donald Delahey, the Bahamian Brewery and Beverage Company’s general manager, told Tribune Business that recycled bottles were 25-30 per cent less expensive and provided a profitable business for some Freeport residents.

“It’s like a business for some people. I would venture to say that because of the economy in Freeport we’re probably getting up to 55-60 per cent of our bottles back,” he said.

“The good part is there is less pollution on the road sides, so there is an environmental factor, plus it helps us from a cost perspective. It does help us out tremendously. When the bottles return it’s 25-30 per cent less expensive. There is a savings from that.”

Mr Delahey added that not all the bottles returned were usable. “You have to factor in the fact that some of the bottles we have to destroy. Some may have been through the system too many times,” he explained.

Mr Delahey estimated that the brewery’s production had “doubled” since it opened six years ago. “We had to expand just to get a better growth,” he said.

“The more volume you put out, your bottom line will be better for it. We have to expand more to get a faster volume out of here at the same price. The more we ship out, the bottom line will be better for us.

“We’re at the point now that in order to produce more we were planning on expanding a little more again. We didn’t come here to take over the beer market. With our size we can’t do it. We only wanted a small portion of what we could produce, 15-20 per cent.”

Mr Delaheynadded: “This expansion we wanted to do is only because we are crowded in our storage department. We are up to the max right there, and what happens when you move around something too many times is it’s liable to get broken.

“We need to just widen the place because we have doubled our capacity. We need to expand our warehouse so we can have better stock control and less breakage, because everything is being moved around two or three times a day.

“That’s basically what the expansion was about, more storage, more organisation and we would get a better yield at the end of the day.”

The Bahamian Brewery & Beverage Company’s principal, Jimmy Sands recently told Tribune Business that the Sands Beer manufacturer had been forced into a last-minute postponement of that planned $1 million expansion.