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The Sanmerna Paper Products story
How determination and resilience built the country's largest tissue producer
Robert and Mark White may not have been aware of the instrumental role they would play in building a strong paper industry in Jamaica when in 2003 they set out to create Sanmerna Paper Products Limited. The brothers, who hail from the tough Waterhouse neighbourhood in western St Andrew, got the idea to get into the paper business from a third partner, an engineer, who left five years after the business started. Robert and Mark have since taken the business through its struggles and are now on the cusp of pushing it for greater growth. Their story is this week's Corporate Profile.
Leaving school in the early 1980s Robert started his work life at Seaban/Testron Jamaica Limited, which was owned by Del Banbury, Neil Seaton and YP Seaton — a company which distributes chemicals for Testron International. He worked there from 1981 to 1989.
"I started sweeping the floor, filling bottles, operating forklifts and shipping orders," Robert White, the younger of the two brothers told the Jamaica Observer as he reflected on his journey over the last 40 years. Then, he was barely out of his teenage years and a far cry from being the managing director of Sanmerna Paper Products Limited.
His brother Mark did a similar job, menial tasks but at a different company — Jamaica Packaging — where he worked from 1978 to 1995. Mark White is now the technical director of Sanmerna Paper Products Limited.
But being in wholesales and supermarkets would not satisfy the brothers who said they wanted to be the chief supplier of tissue and related paper products to the country.
"We had our eyes on being number one and we said that would not happen until we capture a lot of the hotels. So, we put in the work and we met with the purchasing managers to push our products. Now, Sanmerna supplies most of the major hotels in the island including Sandals, Grand Palladium, Iberostar, Bahia Principe, Ocean Coral, Jewels, Hedonism, Royalton and Negril Treehouse. Those are a few I can remember off the top of my head. We are on a trend of rising," Robert added.
https://www.jamaicaobserver.com/busi...roducts-story/
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