The Coffee Industry Board

For nearly seventy years, the Coffee Industry Board regulated Jamaica's coffee trade, licensing dealers, setting quality standards and protecting the Blue Mountain and High Mountain names, before its functions passed to a new regulator, JACRA, in 2018.

When was the Coffee Industry Board established?

The Coffee Industry Board was established on 2 June 1950, under the Coffee Industry Regulation Act of 1948, according to JACRA's own account of its coffee division's background. Sources are not perfectly consistent on this point: a 2024 Jamaica Gleaner commentary by trade specialist Elizabeth Morgan describes the board as having been "established" in 1948, the year the enabling Act was passed, rather than 1950, the year the board itself formally began operating under that Act. JACRA's own published history and an earlier Gleaner account of the board's functions both give 1950 as the board's establishment date, which this page follows as the better-supported figure, while noting that 1948 appears elsewhere.

Why was the board created?

The board grew out of a crisis in quality rather than a routine policy decision. By 1943, Canadian importers were refusing to buy Jamaican coffee because of its poor quality, and the colonial government asked the agricultural scientist A. J. Wakefield to recommend how the industry could be rehabilitated; his central recommendation was a regulatory board, a history reflected in the history of Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee page on this site. The Coffee Industry Regulation Act followed in 1948, and the board itself began operating two years later.

What did the Coffee Industry Board do?

According to JACRA's own summary of the board's former functions, its core responsibilities were:

• Licensing coffee processors and dealers
• Setting and reviewing quality standards for coffee
• Certifying coffee for export, and acting as the sole exporter of green coffee beans
• Providing advisory services to farmers and other industry participants

The board also owned, and was responsible for the integrity of, Jamaica's two protected coffee trademarks, Jamaica Blue Mountain and Jamaica High Mountain Supreme, a role later passed to a JACRA subsidiary, Coffee Marks Limited. Separately, the board established the Coffee Industry Development Company, known as CIDCO, to provide more direct support to growers, according to Wikipedia's article on coffee production in Jamaica.

Deregulation and a narrower role after 2000

The coffee industry was formally deregulated in 2000, after which the board's role narrowed to licensing, certification and advisory work rather than controlling the trade directly, a shift covered in more detail on the history page. Before deregulation, the board had also acted as the industry's sole exporter of green beans, a monopoly role that ended along with direct trade control; afterward, licensed private dealers and processors handled export themselves, subject to the board's standards and inspection. The board continued in this reduced, regulatory form for another eighteen years, a period during which established private processors, including Mavis Bank Coffee Factory and Wallenford Coffee Company, operated under its licenses; their individual histories are covered on the estates page.

When and how did JACRA take over?

The Jamaica Agricultural Commodities Regulatory Authority Act was passed in March 2017, and JACRA began operating on 1 January 2018, taking over the Coffee Industry Board's functions along with those of the Cocoa Industry Board, the regulatory side of the Coconut Industry Board, and the Export Division of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining, according to JACRA's own account of its history. The change consolidated regulation of coffee, cocoa, coconut and several spice crops under a single authority rather than several separate boards.

JACRA's 2018 regulations also reset some of the rules the old board had operated under. They raised the minimum Blue Mountain content required in a labeled blend from 20%, the figure used in the board's 1953 regulations, to 30%, the figure in force today; the fuller detail on labeling rules is on the certification and labels page.

Reading further

For the full timeline of Jamaican coffee regulation, from the 1943 quality crisis through JACRA's 2018 takeover, see a history of Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee. For what JACRA certifies and licenses today, see JACRA certification and how to read a Blue Mountain label.