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After a year-long shortage, ackee processors are seeing an uptick in the supplies of the raw material and are hopeful that market conditions will improve before the end of the year, according to two producers of canned ackees.
Canute Sadler, chairman of Stanmark Processors Limited, says he is back to processing ackee at his three factories in Darliston, Westmoreland, Morgans Pass, Clarendon and Yallahs, St Thomas.
“We have started to see increased supplies since last week and this supply is going to run right into December … I’m canning ackee now, I’m running almost 200 cases a day. If we don’t get a hurricane or bad weather there is going to be a lot of ackee in September going into December,” Sadler said in an interview on July 19.
A case of ackee holds 24 cans.
Canned ackee has been in short supply since the devastation of the agriculture sector by Hurricane Beryl on in early July 2024.
Grace Ackees is listed on Walmart.com as being out of stock.
Linstead Market Ackee is currently listed on Target.com at US$10.69 for a 19-ounce can. The Linstead Market brand is owned by Spur Tree Spices Jamaica Limited.
Amid the shortage, in 2024, ackee exports fell to about US$18.1 million from US$26.1 million in 2023, according to the Economic and Social Survey Jamaica produced annually by the Planning Institute of Jamaica.
Spur Tree Spices, for instance, has been struggling to meet the demand for canned ackee in its main export markets of the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.
“Since the hurricane last year, we have not had any significant ackee crop. In fact, it has been absent,” said CEO Albert Bailey.
“We are hoping that going into the third and the fourth quarter, we are going to see an improvement in that situation providing the environment remains favourable,” he reported to the company’s shareholders at their annual general meeting in New Kingston on Monday.
With the growth of the tourism industry locally and strong demand in the diaspora, supplies of ackee have been falling short for years, and the problem was exacerbated by weather events.
Efforts to increase supply through new ackee orchards have not had the desired results so far.
“The science of growing ackee is a challenging one. As a country we have been trying to create ackee orchards for some time now, but we have not been successful at it, but it’s something that is consistently and constantly being explored,” Bailey said in response to shareholders’ questions.
“In 2023, we planted well over 2,000 trees. Unfortunately, the drought was a challenge and I think probably less than 500 of those trees survived,” he noted.
“The other thing is that whenever there is a major event like a hurricane, the trees come under stress, there is a shock effect on the trees. So they take a little time to recover and to produce at the level that they were producing before. That’s a part of the challenge we are seeing in 2025,” he said.
Spur Tree Spices is considering partnering with investors who are willing to cultivate ackees, in order to address the supply gap, Bailey said.
So serious is the ackee shortage that some factories were said to have closed until the supply of the raw material improves.
“I personally know of a number of ackee producing companies which have closed their doors since the beginning of this year, because they couldn’t remain open because of the operating cost of carrying their business without ackee,” Bailey said.
In August last year Minister of Agriculture Floyd Green announced plans to plant out 1,000 acres with ackee trees over three years, through a public-private partnership.
Production areas identified include St Ann, Clarendon, Trelawny, Manchester, St Thomas and St Elizabeth.
English (US) ·