WINERA Explains Banana Carton Unavailability

The Windward Islands (WINERA) Packaging Company Limited, as part of our Strategic Plan and our commitment to continuous improvement undertook a major (multi-million dollar) investment in upgrading our Corrugator. This upgrade is expected to generate many benefits including improved plant productivity and efficiency and an increase in plant capacity. This project commenced in August 2023 with the initial procurement of the machinery and is still ongoing with installation at 85% stage of completion. The machinery is expected to be commissioned in April 2024. As part of the management of this project and in order to adequately plan for the shut down of our machinery, Winera communicated with its customers to obtain their projections that would allow the company to produce the boxes in advance of the Corrugator downtime which commenced on February 25th. Despite our efforts we encountered machine-related challenges in meeting the production timeframe and consequently, the company resorted to the purchase of containerloads of sheets from the Dominican Republic in order to satisfy the demand of all customers including the banana farmers. Unfortunately, the shipment is late due to shipping and logistics issues. The sheets are therefore expected to arrive during the second week of April upon which...