Berger makes aggressive move to deepen coatings market share

Berger Paints Jamaica Limited has invested $130 million in new infrastructure and machinery with the intention of growing share of the paint coatings market.

With the commissioning of the new facility, Berger now has around 1.45 million litres of coating capacity. The older production capacity for the Trowel On product is about 450,000 litres, which is produced utilising two work shifts at the Kingston-based factory. The new equipment adds another one million litres of textured coating capacity per year and operates with only one shift at present.

Textured coatings have been taking on increasing significance in the construction finishing segment. If walls are plumb and straight, then application of such a coating eliminates one-two costly steps in the finishing process by going straight to final finishes. The product is especially valuable in large-scale projects, like new hotels and housing schemes.

After a loss-making 2023, Berger turned a profit of $105.68 million at the end of 2024 on the back of increased revenue of $3.49 billion.

The machinery is aimed at driving efficiency and started cranking out product, initially on a test basis, last August. The equipment was fully commissioned in October 2024 in time for the October-November paint season. It sits on a 2,000-square-foot extension of the sprawling factory on Spanish Town Road, and is currently running at 80 per cent capacity on a single shift. With two shifts, at full capacity, it can produce two million litres, Williams told the Financial Gleaner.

Production Manager and project lead Ross Albert said the investment rides on the 72-year-old company’s household name in Jamaica, where Berger is the dominant player in the paint market.

“We have spent time, we have spent money investing in the Jamaican market because we want to grow in the Jamaican market. This investment in capacity gives us some opportunity to export as well, but our first priority is the Jamaican market and servicing the Jamaican people,” Albert said.

Berger Jamaica’s General Manager, Dwaine Williams, said the investment was geared towards making Jamaica a production hub for textured coatings in the region. The paint company is ultimately owned by the ANSA McAL conglomerated based in Trinidad & Tobago, its most recent parent, which acquired Berger in 2017.

“There was a vision for how we should tackle the observed potential in the textured market space locally and regionally. Jamaica was selected as the site because we are the only trowel-on manufacturer within the (ANSA McAL) group,” Williams said. “We are the source market for all of our other plants and paint distribution companies within Caricom, so we were selected as such.”

Williams has a background in the FMCG industry – short for fast-moving consumer goods – and is known for his focus on people development and innovation. He was headhunted from cigarette maker British American Tobacco, while posted at its subsidiary West Indies Tobacco in Trinidad & Tobago, and joined Berger Jamaica in October 2023 as the replacement for Shasi Mahase, the previous general manager.

Williams said the coatings project was already under way when he took up his new job. The plant, which was built in Spain, was already completed by the time Williams took up his new position, but not yet installed. Of the $130-million investment, $100 million was spent on the equipment and the other $30 million on the building and infrastructure.

“So, when I got here it was really just continuing to manage the project through completion and testing, and then organising with the operations team on the ground to schedule the receival and installation of the plant,” Williams said.

At the official launch of the new plant on Wednesday, the production team flipped the switch to the system and an induction motor, about the size of a backpack, went to work with a barely audible, steady hum. Two workers in full protective gear deftly started to load the huge mixing vat containing a latex and water mixture, with about 20 100-pound sacks of key ingredient, whiting from regular local aggregates supplier Hodges Aggregates and Powders Limited in St Elizabeth.

In-between, the Berger workers added biocide to make the product fungus-resistant and other chemicals that they declined to name. There was no pigment added, since this batch of product was white.

As other members of the team extruded the thick goo from another ready vat into five-gallon buckets, Albert described the process like a proud father, while Williams and board Chairman Christian Llanos looked on approvingly.

The system can produce 11,000 litres per batch, with two-three batches per day. Each batch is loaded into 55 to 60 five-gallon buckets, depending on the thickness of the product.

“We haven’t yet put it through its paces at full tilt, based on the million-litre capacity it’s been specced to deliver at minimum; but as we start to pull through export and the local market starts to rebound and the projects get back on stream, we’re well poised to absorb that, with not even a flinch with this machine,” Williams later told the Financial Gleaner. He noted that Berger has had availability issues for its Trowel On product in the past and that it represented a particular pain point, with orders needing two weeks to be filled. The upshot was, the paint company often lost out on servicing some large projects, with contractors opting for overseas suppliers.

“You would have had to put in your order for this week and it’s delivered next week or later,” Williams said of the older system. But: “With this plant, now you can show up and say you need a couple buckets of Trowel On, and within 15 minutes you have it in hand to go,” he added.

Also, the company is now in a position to press ahead with its innovation agenda, with the planned launch of new products, including roof compounds, joint compounds and ready-to-use crack fillers, which have already begun entering the market, with more to come in 2025 and beyond, Williams said.

neville.graham@gleanerjm.com