Jamaican Firm Thrives by Selling Local Flavor

Nestled on the grounds of an 18th century plantation, Walkerswood Caribbean Foods is an unlikely success story--and a beacon of hope.

Over two decades the company has grown from a tiny workers cooperative into an exporter by getting tourists hooked on Jamaican “jerk” sauces that turn ordinary chicken, pork and fish into tangy delights.

The sauces--and other local delicacies from canned ackee fruit to allspice seasoning--are available as far afield as Toronto and Johannesburg, South Africa. The company, while small, is a bright spot for a lean economy that has seen traditional garment and agricultural exports decline.

Over the last two years Jamaica’s exports have fallen about 20%. Walkerswood’s exports have grown by almost half to $1.9 million a year, helping fuel a boomlet among local farmers who supply almost all the ingredients for the company’s sauces.

Nationally, its success has boosted pride in Jamaican culture and hope for the future.

“Take Blue Mountain coffee or pimento and you know that Jamaica produces some of the highest-quality goods in the world,” said Paul Robertson, a former industry and investment minister. “It’s these products that appeal to niche markets where we can build moneymaking enterprises like Walkerswood.”

The company’s managing director, Woodrow Mitchell, said Walkerswood began in 1978 as “a stopgap measure to create employment in the community.”

“We never dreamed we’d even get into exports,” he said.

Jamaica’s economy was faltering back then. Then-Premier Michael Manley was preaching socialism and fostering ties with Cuba. Thousands of young people quit the countryside and poured into Kingston’s poor and violent neighborhoods.

In the small agricultural town of Walkers Wood, local people tried to stem the tide. Women set up a small sewing shop. Some men formed a woodworking cooperative to sell carvings to tourists. And a small group began grilling jerk pork and selling it to local bars.

Within two years they moved into bottling jerk seasoning sauce in a long wooden building on the former plantation, now owned by the family of one of the company’s founders.

The efforts coincided with Jamaica’s rise as a magnet for tourists from the increasingly travel-oriented middle classes of the United States and other developed nations.

Many came to nearby Ocho Rios--and developed a taste for the jerked dishes, marinated in the searing concoction of island-grown spices and barbecued slowly over a pimento wood fire to give the meat a distinctive smoky flavor.

“The tourists from North America who were exposed to jerk bought the seasoning and took it to the U.S.,” Mitchell said. “We started getting piles of letters saying, ‘I can’t live without jerk seasoning.’ So we started posting one, maybe two or three or a dozen jars to the U.S. at a time.”

Over the years the product line has expanded to include local favorites such as solomon gundy, a spicy fish paste made from herring that is served on crackers, and savory coconut rundown sauce, traditionally used to cook mackerel for breakfast.

Walkerswood products are available throughout North America and Europe, sold in supermarkets and specialty stores.

Jerk sauces have “a flavor that’s unique,” said Stuart Gale, vice president of Eve Sales Corp., which distributes Walkerswood products in the United States. “Most hot sauces brag about how hot they are, but they don’t have any flavor.”

In its effort to expand the market, Walkerswood attaches colorful pamphlets to its products with recipes that incorporate its sauces into common North American and European foods--such as pasta in a solomon gundy sauce.

The company retains the cooperative flavor of its humble beginnings.

Most of the 60 workers have a stake in the company, said Mitchell, whom everyone calls Woody. Many live in adjacent Walkers Wood, a collection of pastel wooden buildings. Their factory resides inside the plantation’s old stone buildings, some of which have been expanded as the company has grown.

Up the hill looms the Georgian great house. Gun slits in its foundation pay silent homage to the Maroons--the much-feared runaway slaves who lived in the mountains, terrorized British settlers, and, it is believed, were the first to “jerk” wild pigs in their faraway retreats.