bbii 03-05-24-27 citrus products from jagueey grande

8/9/2019 BBII 03-05-24-27 Citrus Products From Jagueey Grande

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Success story of a Cuban fruit juice company

CITRUS PRODUCTSFRO M JAGÜEY GRAN

Not only is Cuba a tourist attraction w orth to be visited, it also features techn ically interesting comp anies which invite you to a visit. This was the experience mad e by the participants in

the IFU c ongress which took p lace in Havanna, Cuba in February 2000. In the b ackground o fthis world cong ress of the international fruit juice un ion, among other things, the citrus co mp any

Héroes d e Girón, bett er know n as Jagüey Grande w as paid a visit. Meanw hile the enterprisehas advanced, a reason for our ed itorial team to interview the management b od yof Jagüey Grande in the c ontext o f another visit to Cub a. (bu )

I f you drive on the motorwaynumber 1 leading throughCuba in a central directionfrom Havanna to the south-east,it becomes already obvious afterabout 100 km that citrus productsarguably play an important rolein the Cuban agriculture.

Largest citrus p lantationof the world.”

In the midst of tro pical trees a sign at the mot orw ay exitpoints to the wide produc tion range of Jagüey Grande.

You drive past almost endlesslyseeming rows of orange and gra-pefruit trees for many miles untilyou finally reach the turnoff to thehistoric Bay of Pigs near the oldAustralia sugar factory. Shortly be-fore, the processing facilities of

Jagüey Grande, the largest Cubanconcentrate manufacturer, can beseen from a distance reachinghigh in the sky on the left side ofthe motorway. The company was


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founded in 1983 and is situatedabout 150 km south-west of Ha-vanna. It is named after the neigh-bouring small city of Jagüey Gran-de. The name “Heroes of Giron”naturally refers to the defence ofthe American invasion in the Bayof Pigs in 1961.

of resources, namely the citrusplantations. So it was not only theirrigation of the plantation that wasoptimised, but also its regenerationthat was offensively dealt with.

1992: Coop erationwithWaknine & Berezovsky.”

1 000 hectaresof new plantationsper year.”

The team idea is in the foregrou nd at Jagüey Grande: (from left) Rudinei Lot,Consultant GB M , Wolfgang Burkart, BREWING AND BEVERAGE INDUSTRY INTERNATIONAL; Direct or Ing. Hiram Santana Castro; Ing. Alejandro M olina Gil,Deput y Directo r; Wilfredo de A rmas García, Quality Manager Assurance;(contact: n .berezovsky@wb -il.com ).

Interesting cont rast: While the pro cessing colum ns of Jagüey Grandealmost remind you of Cape Kennedy w hen viewed from the m otorway,the horse and cart on t he right front em anates plenty of nostalgia.

40 000 hectars of citrus trees surround Jagüey Grande and provide a con stant supp ly of fruit during the harvest season.

Originally, the concentrate plantwhich is surrounded by 40000hectares of citrus trees belongedto the Cuban Ministry of the FoodIndustry Minal while the citrus plan-tations themselves belonged tothe Ministry of Agriculture. JagüeyGrande has always processedoranges and grapefruit eachcounting for 50 per cent of theprocessed fruit. As far as theoranges are concerned, Valenciais the mainly cultivated variety; the50 per cent share of grapefruit isdivided into white and rosy grape-fruit. According to the enterprise´sown statements, it is the largestcitrus plantation in the world ownedby a sole proprietor.

The citrus fruit are used toproduce concentrate, juices, mash,beverages and essences whichwere originally mainly exportedto the Comecon states. The fruitprocessed are almost exclusivelypurchased from the neighbouringplantations. The quality of the citrusfruit is particularly well known due totheir special taste and sweetness.

In the year of 1992, after the fallof the Iron Curtain had ended thetraditional relationships, mainlywith the USSR, the enterprisesuffered a hard time. Finally,in 1992, a long-term joint venturewas established with Grupo B.M.and Waknine & Berezovsky Co. Ltd.

In Cuba, Noach Berezovskycould make brilliant use of hisknowledge acquired from theIraeli citrus industry and hasbeen accompanying JagüeyGrande to their mutual benefit sincethen. The joint venture agreementaimed at financing and improvingthe quality and marketing of theJagüey Grande products world-wide. A capital expenditure pro-

gramme was started which notonly included the processing capa-city (37 extractors), processingquality, the development of newproducts, but also the improvement

Three years ago, they startedto reduce the crop by about 1000hectares annually. Director HiramSantana Castro indeed confirmedthe availability of sufficient landto extend the plantations, however,he said that there were no plans todo so at the moment. When askedwhat was the biggest difference tothe situation of 1991, Castro mainlyemphasises the today developedand essentially bigger sales market,

especially in Europe whichhad been closed until 1991.Meanwhile, also 1 000 tonsof grapefruit concentrate aredelivered to Japan annually,


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colleagues which is performedwherever it is possible. In addition,a new quality control system hasbeen established in the factory,the participation in the ISO 9001is supposed to guarantee thehigh quality standards in the longterm. There´s one particularityto be noted: Jagüey Grande hasbeen submitting to the voluntarycontrol system of the DeutscheSchutzgemeinschaft Fruchtsaft(German Association for theProtection of Fruit Juices) forsome years. This membershipgives evidence of the importancethe enterprise attaches to theobservance of the new qualitystandards.If you walk through the factorywith your eyes open, you can alsosee the effects of this notion ofquality. The hygiene and the wellorganised operating proceduresprevailing in Jagüey Grande are nota matter of course in factories ofthe tropical region. It is also strikingthat Jagüey Grande emphasisesthe team spirit, the achievedquality standard can be reachedonly “if everybody makes an effortand works together to this end.”

a slightly smaller amount is soldin China. Since the productioncould be exclusively sold to theComecon states of the EasternBloc before 1991, the present salesmarket must be naturally ratedquite differently. The processingcapacity has been extended since1991, which means more thandoubled and Castro furthermoreemphasises that the product quality

has been essentially improvedand the plantations operatedmore efficiently. The JagüeyGrande team attaches particularimportance to the exchangeof experiences with European

capacity amounts to 200 tons ofconcentrate, as well as 80 tons ofNFC orange juice per day. Orangesare processed from Februaryto April, grapefruit from Octoberto December. The enterprise todayhas more than 500 employeesin the factory and if you add inthe free farmers who deliver thefruit, the result is 6000 additionalemployees, not to forget the

1 300 pickers who work duringthe season.Today, 60 per cent of the Cubanproductions are generated byJagüey Grande. When NoachBerezovsky assisted in the technicalestablishment of the enterprise,

A large train of machines is neededto be able to process up to 2 000 tons

of fru it daily.

Che Guevara is still omn ipresent in Cub a. Directo r Hiram Santana Castro (left) and his team had to c op e with trying circumstances after 1992and can be proud of the present

state of J agüey Grande.

The concentrate is delivered into the who le world in200 litre casks. In return to the tech nical and financialaid after 1992, Waknine & Berezovsky were grantedthe international distribution rights.

500 w orkers are emp loyed at Jagüey Grande. Proper wages, add itional social contributions and p ermanent advanced t raining guarantee a low fluctuation rate.

New sales regions developed.”

It should be noted as well that theconcentrates produced are mainlyshipped to Europe, primarily, 200 lcasks are filled which are shippeddeep frozen. The processing


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machinery from Europe was usedas well, such as e.g. evaporatorsof Gomaco, extractors of Cente-nario, evaporators and extractorsof Formesa, Finisher cold pressedOil of Filtrox and centrifugesof Westfalia. The Jagüey Grandeemployees are slightly better paidthan the average Cuban workersand are granted additional socialcontributions which results in alow fluctuation rate in the company.

Just next to the factories of JagüeyGrande, the bottling company ofRio Zaza is located. It bottles theTropical Island brand in 1 litre and0.25 litre cardboard packages withTetraPak machines for the domesticmarket and the Caribbean region.Unfortunately, the editorial teamcould not visit this plant, but itmight be possible some other day.Meanwhile, we can congratulatethe Jagüey Grande team on itssuccess. The transformation into

a modern fruit processing compan yhas been successfully realisedwith relatively poor resources andthe enterprise needn´t be afraid

of being compared with similarfactories in the classical citrusprocessing countries of Braziland Florida.

Just nextto Jagüey

Grande,the juices

are filled into1 litre and

0.2 litre Slim Line Tetra cardboard

boxes at Rio

Zaza under the brandof „Tropic al

Island“.

The laboratory o f Wilfredo de A rmas García need nt́ b e afraidof being measured even accord ing to international standards.

Mem ber of the association for the protectionof fruit juices SGF.”

200 tons

of conc entrateper day.”

The enterprise continues to setvalue on advanced training andmaintains an intensive cooperationwith the technical universities ofMatanzas, or Havanna respectively .The company management isparticularly proud of the fact thatthe fruit are delivered and pro-cessed the very same day theyare gathered, even during thebustling harvest time.The joint venture with Waknine& Berezovsky has been workingwithout problems to this day.Noach Berezovsky has supportedthe enterprise with technical knowhow, financed the investment inmachinery and organised the export .In return, Waknine & Berezovskywere granted the exclusive rightsto the worldwide distributionof the Jagüey Grande products.If you ask the company managementfor perspectives of the next fewyears, the extension of the productrange is formulated as a target,pineapple, mango, guava andpapaya are on the wish list here.Moreover, they aim at regeneratingthe plantation crops and it will takeabout three years of time to reacha satisfying situation. The fact thatthey are still not satisfied with thepresent success in Cuba in spiteof good results is shown by thewillingness to increase the efficiencyof the production processes evenfurther in the future.

The motorw ay no. 1 which leads past Jagüey Grande pro vides stereotypes: Old American road c ruisers under

a blue sky and tropic al trees: Thatś how the gringo t hinks Cuba is like.

bbii 03-05-24-27 citrus products from jagueey grande

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