The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Sands Beer and its "light" version will be back by end-September, their Freeport-based brewer has pledged, with manufacturing restored to between 65-70 percent of pre-Dorian capacity by that date.

Jimmy Sands, the Bahamian Brewery and Beverage Company’s founder, told Tribune Business that the total sum being invested in rebuilding the company's production facilities will be "40 percent higher" than the proceeds received from his storm-related insurance claim.

Explaining that the extra investment had resulted from his desire "to make the place better and more efficient", Mr Sands said the company's brewing revival - set to launch almost 13 months after the Category Five hurricane's storm surge devastated its plant and warehouse inventory - will focus on its core beer lines first.

The others, including Strong Back Stout, High Rock Lager, Bush Crack Beer, Triple B Malt and Sands Passion Radler, will make their comeback later once The Bahamas' COVID-19 border restrictions are eased to enable more specialist technicians to enter and complete mechanical repairs, the Bahamian Brewery and Beverage Company chief added.

"I hope to have production towards the end of next month; Sands and Sands Light," Mr Sands told this newspaper. "The others will follow after that. After the borders opened on July 1 I had all the equipment here, all the machines here, and brought in 13 technicians out of Europe. One week later I brought in a further eight.

"Now these people are putting the brewery back together but I won't be able to complete it fully. I'll have it running at 65 percent to 70 percent until the travel restrictions are lifted and I'm able to bring in further technicians to complete the 30 percent that remains. I'll be able to complete 70 percent by the end of September under current conditions."

The Bahamian Brewery and Beverage Company, in common with most Freeport-based industrial concerns, was granted permission by the Competent Authority (Prime Minister's Office) to remain open throughout Grand Bahama's three-week lockdown which ends today.

Mr Sands said the Dorian-enforced halt to production of the company's local brands, coupled with COVID-19 lockdown restrictions and the inability to sell its imported alcohol to consumers, had cost the brewery "hundreds of thousands of dollars a month".

Yet despite the financial challenges created by Dorian and COVID-19's twin blows, Mr Sands added that he had managed to keep the company's entire 130-strong workforce employed over the past 12 months.

"I haven't let anybody go," he told Tribune Business. "This brewery will be so much better now than it was before. It's bigger, better. The cost involved is 40 percent higher than what the [insurance] claim is. I chose to make the place better and more efficient. I really don't like to put a number out there, but it's costing millions of dollars."

Mr Sands said his struggles to keep the Bahamian Brewery and Beverage Company and its staff afloat over the past 13 months had added to the pain he felt when informed that his main competitor, BISX-listed Commonwealth Brewery, and its retail arm had seemingly been allowed by the Government to remain open during the latest lockdown and run an online ordering operation targeted at consumers.

Tribune Business reported on this situation on Monday, with Mr Sands saying: "Here I am trying to put the brewery back together, and scratching where I don't itch, and this is taking place. I'm closed and they're open.

"I'm trying to keep 130 people employed. How am I to keep 130 people employed in conditions like that? I've bent over backwards to keep these people employed, rebuild this brewery, and I get a slap in the face like that. My coat tail is horizontal trying to get this place up and running.

"It's been one hell of a year. We've all had this one hell of a year, as there are so many other people involved in this. People are hurting. I'm doing my damnedest to try and keep my people afloat, but my shoulders are only so broad and I can only carry so much weight."

The Bahamian Brewery and Beverage Company's manufacturing facilities were knocked out when four feet of Dorian's flood water penetrated its buildings and destroyed all its electrical machinery, finished product and ingredients in inventory.

Besides the brewery’s machinery and warehoused product, Dorian’s floodwaters also impacted its reverse osmosis plant and key ingredients such as hops, sugar and yeast. Despite being constructed some six-and-a-half feet above ground level to prevent flooding associated with hurricanes, its plant proved no match for Dorian.

“We took a hell of a hit, with three-and-a-half to four feet of water through the brewery,” Mr Sands told Tribune Business at the time. “That hi-tech machinery doesn’t go together well with four feet of sea water so, as a result, we’re going to be out of commission for some time.

“I think we’ll be out, me speaking as a layman, at least six months. A lot of the machines are out. They’re only good for crawfish now. There was a tremendous amount of electrical equipment and all that takes time to put back together. I wish I could sugarcoat it another way but that’s how it is. It’s terrible. It was a disaster.”