{"id":1751,"date":"2020-12-04T22:46:53","date_gmt":"2020-12-04T22:46:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/honeybunja.com\/?p=1751"},"modified":"2020-12-04T22:50:32","modified_gmt":"2020-12-04T22:50:32","slug":"honey-bun-going-after-more-of-the-resort-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/honeybunja.com\/?p=1751","title":{"rendered":"Honey Bun Going After More Of The Resort Market"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Pastry maker<\/span>\u00a0Honey Bun is going after healthy eaters, students and the resort market with new products that are being rolled out throughout the year.<\/p>\n

So far, Honey Bun has introduced a wheat-based snack called Pickney Crackers and more recently, a lemon-flavoured doughnut, both targeted at schoolgoers.<\/p>\n

More products are in the works.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the products on the drawing board right now is a healthy snack that uses indigenous Jamaican products, and the others have to do with variations of an existing product that we have that will be very innovative,\u201d Honey Bun CEO Michelle Chong told the\u00a0Financial Gleaner<\/b>\u00a0on the margins of the company\u2019s annual general meeting on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The bakery produces and wholesales pastries and cakes, including rum cakes, doughnuts, snack cakes, as well as buns, bread, raisin bread, cinnamon rolls and cheese bread.<\/p>\n

Honey Bun is already in the hospitality market, as one of the channels for its burger buns and \u00adpocket-sized Buccaneer rum cakes, but Chong noted that the company wants to deepen its share of the resort \u00adsector with healthier baked goods.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe that there is a space for \u00adinnovative new products, not the same old bakery products, with a healthier twist to it for new markets. We are developing products for the hotel industry now and we will be pursuing that aggressively,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The company\u2019s product innovation phase follows a $150-million expansion in 2018, which included additions to Honey Bun\u2019s existing plant at Retirement Crescent in Kingston.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith that completed, we also use \u00adscheduling to maximise our efficiency. Let\u2019s say we can produce 100 products in an hour; we have to find ways now to increase that to a 120 products per hour in responding to demands,\u201d Chong said.<\/p>\n

Honey Bun closed its first quarter ending December 2019 with revenue of $422.5 million, up 14 per cent over prior year, due to increased output, penetration of new markets, and export revenue which climbed 149 per cent over the prior year, according to the company\u2019s unaudited financial statements.<\/p>\n

The bakery made a profit of $49.1 million in the quarter, up from $38.09 million in the comparative 2018 period.<\/p>\n

While Honey Bun works on \u00adgrowing sales and profit margins, the company is also in the middle of a human \u00adresource audit, which Chong expects to be \u00adcompleted over the next 90 days.<\/p>\n

The audit is part of a three-year \u00adstrategic plan aimed at making technological, \u00adefficiency and proficiency improvements across the company.<\/p>\n

Last year, Honey Bun brought in Canada-based management consultant Alex Ihama, and spent US$40,000 on \u00adleadership \u00adtraining, organisational changes, and cost-saving measures. The HR audit is being conducted by an undisclosed local firm.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe HR audit will allow us an \u00adopportunity to compare what we do in HR with global standards,\u201d said Chong. \u201cWe believe that it was important for us to undergo an HR audit, not because we are having problems, but because we have this thrust to be the best place of employment, and also because we believe that success is driven by talent.\u201d<\/p>\n

As to its implications for staffing: \u201cYou never know,\u201d she said. \u201cCould be more staff, could be less, or a restructuring. It all depends on what the audit exposes.\u201d<\/p>\n

karena.bennett@gleanerjm.com<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n

http:\/\/jamaica-gleaner.com\/article\/business\/20200313\/honey-bun-going-after-more-resort-market<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pastry maker\u00a0Honey Bun is going after healthy eaters, students and the resort market with new products that are being rolled out throughout the year. So far, Honey Bun has introduced a wheat-based snack called Pickney Crackers and more recently, a lemon-flavoured doughnut, both targeted at schoolgoers. More products are in the works. \u201cOne of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/honeybunja.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/honeybunja.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/honeybunja.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/honeybunja.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/honeybunja.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1751"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/honeybunja.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1751\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1755,"href":"https:\/\/honeybunja.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1751\/revisions\/1755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/honeybunja.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/honeybunja.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/honeybunja.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}