You are a journalist who features family owned businesses.  You interviewed Mathew Thompson. Write a feature article. Leave out all the fillers. It shouldn't sound AI. 0:00) Okay, so tell me about journeys and tell me about the business. How did it start, who started it, and so on. (0:16) Okay, give me one minute.
(0:48) Okay, so the company was started in 2012 by someone of the name of Mr. Howard Cox. He is the pioneer of journeys and wine company limited or labels of the past. He came up with Ackee wine, sorrel wine, ginger wine, fermented berry wine, sugarcane wine.
(1:21) We took over the company around 2016 or 2016, somewhere there. (1:33) My memory isn't exactly flat on the exact year, but during that space of from then and now we have grown the company from out of his backyard into three commercial units at 121 Duke Street at a fractious corporation building. (1:50) We have refined and optimised the production process.
We have changed some of our packaging processes. We have bettered the quality of the wine. (2:08) We've also won some awards that I'm seeing here from National Bakery in 2014, the JMA by Jamaica, Build Jamaica Award in 2013.
We also participated in the Speed Networking Seminar in 2019 and we're a part of Export Max 3. (2:35) Okay, who is Howard Cox? Is he a family member? (2:42) No, he was the original owner of the company. He's the person that we bought over. (2:46) Okay, so all right.
Your dad bought the company. (2:53) Yes, my dad and my uncle purchased the company. (2:57) Your dad and your uncle.
(2:59) What's your name? (3:01) Okay, so my father's name is Stratik Thompson and my uncle's name is John Thompson. (3:08) Okay, John Thompson. And you said this was in 2016? (3:19) More like 2018.
I just gave it a range because it's somewhere in there. (3:25) Okay, and what were their visions for the company? Why did they see this as something that they wanted to bring forward? (3:38) Well, I can't particularly speak towards my uncle's theory, but I believe he was leading with my dad's theory. (3:46) And my dad's theory was when he was introduced to the company by Mr. Howard Cox, he saw wines that were unique and authentic that he could bring to a proper company to build as a family legacy, a family company to pass on to us, his children, to eventually grow with or to part with if we sold it.
(4:07) But at the moment of purchasing, he thought that it would be a very good company to work on with his family. (4:16) Okay, and you have some very unique and interesting flavours, ackee wine, pimento wine. I actually bought the Storylande pimento wine last year as presents for my family.
(4:31) But tell me why these type of ingredients? (4:37) Okay, we wanted the wine to be centred around not just Jamaican foods, but Caribbean foods as a whole. (4:46) We wanted the Flavours of the Floss brand to be centred as a Caribbean wine, set different apart from an Italian or a French or even an American. (4:56) So we never tried to imitate necessarily the grape in your type of wine, we always tried to stick to a unique niche wine that has the same process as a grape fine wine, just that instead of grapes, we're using Caribbean foods, but in the same process.
(5:14) Okay, very interesting. Tell me how family comes into play now in the business. You, your dad, your uncle and you are some of the family members that are involved in this business.
Tell me how this works. (5:35) Okay, so the original dynamic, I think within the first two years, my father was the most involved. And at that time, he hired another uncle to be the factory manager and I was working under that uncle.
(5:59) I didn't get factory manager then, I didn't hear anything after that. (6:05) So for the first two years that we bought the company, my father hired another uncle to work as the factory manager and I was working under that uncle. (6:16) And during that time, I was essentially learning the ways of the operation, suggesting ways that we can refine the operation.
And my father and John were the ones really discussing business direction, sales, customers and so on. (6:35) And then as the company progressed, and the uncle that was a factory manager stepped on, I stepped up and began to take over all the legislative and administrative work. (6:48) I overestimated production.
If there was a specific project that he wanted to work on in the factory, I would coordinate it and get it done. If something needed to be sorted for a certification or application, I would also work on it. (7:07) So my uncle and my father began to take a more logistical approach, wherein my uncle, which is John, sorted out the sourcing and more so logistics of our raw material and packaging material.
(7:34) And my father focused more on customers and finance and I took over the managing of the entire factory production administration and in certain aspects, payments and so on. (7:54) Okay. So the company moved from brother and brother doing business and now it's moving towards father and son.
Tell me how that kind of dynamic contributes to the success of Flavours of the Past family versus just any regular employee doing this together. (8:25) I guess you could say that since it's father and son and uncle, you can't leave out my uncle. My uncle is very involved, he's just not physically on the island, that's the only difference.
(8:40) So a very interesting dynamic wherein, let's say, if he were to hire an outside manager to manage the company, maybe they wouldn't be as invested in the development and the direction of the company. (8:54) Wherein me, my father and my uncle are always discussing where we would like the company to go, where we see growth for the company and how we are able to get it there. (9:07) And you know, for our family members, we aren't afraid to say the things that certain employees would be afraid to say to their boss.
(9:16) Yeah. I understand. Okay.
So this legacy, what kind of plans do you have for this company in terms of passing this business on or maintaining the business for generations to come? (9:40) What does that mean? I know you would want the business to continue in the family. (9:58) Before I answer, the purpose of the piece is to talk about family legacy, right? (10:05) Yes. Family legacy.
That's the campaign. Family legacy. So this is the part where I talk about the legacy that you want to carry on.
(10:19) There's a slight problem. So there's two instances to this. There's one aspect where it's very much nice to talk about the legacy that we were aiming for and wanted, and then there's another aspect where I have to tell you that we're actually trying to sell right now.
(10:33) I'm sorry. I can hear you. I know that you're talking, but the words are just not clear.
I don't know if it's the phone or how close you are to the microphone. (10:45) I was saying that there's two aspects to this now that we're at this point of the interview. I was saying that I can tell you about the legacy that we were aiming for and wanted to get it towards, and then there's another aspect where I can tell you that we're actually in the process of trying to sell the company right now.
(11:08) And it's not necessarily because we so vehemently want to. (11:12) All right. Could you tell me about the first aspect? Let's lead with the first aspect, where you wanted the business to go.
(11:21) So I think this was pre-COVID where we initially discussed this, where the vision for the company was to have the wine become, instead of just associating it with just as a Jamaican wine, the aim was for it to become a Caribbean wine, for it to be recognised all around the Caribbean. (11:50) To say that this wine is a Caribbean wine. This isn't a French or Italian or an American.
It's a real thoroughbred Caribbean wine made from Caribbean produce in the same fine wine process as a red and a white so that it could be able to, you know, you could put it on the shelves beside a red and a white and it would compete. That was the dream and the legacy for the wine. (12:20) And then where the company stood, we wanted to split the focus of the company into two aspects.
One where we are focused on our wine production and distribution and where we also provide these type of Caribbean wines for other companies under their own brands to the best of our ability. (12:51) Okay, I just stepped into the store and just to look on your wine. I'm seeing them in the store.
(12:58) Hello. Yeah, so tell me about how customers, well the Diaspora and other international customers and even local customers have received the brand so far because you know it's different and it really represents Jamaica. The Moringa, the Sawasap, it all screams Jamaica.
Tell me about how it's received. (13:25) Okay, so because we have so many flavours, the feedback is from good to bad to in the middle. It all really depends on what flavour they have tried at that point in time and what kind of alcoholic beverage drinker they are.
(13:42) So we have had people who like fine red and white wine taste the wines and say they're too sweet, they're different from the red wines that they like. In that case, we try to get them to taste either the ackee or the pimenta berry and they say that it is good enough but it still wouldn't be able to compete to a red and white wine in their view. (14:12) If you were to ask a casual drinker now, they say they like all the flavours, they would particularly like the sorrel, the passion, the pineapple, and the Sawasap.
More so females like the sweeter flavours than the males but that's the general feedback that we get from people who are casual drinkers. (14:31) And then for those who are, I'd say, not necessarily a fine wine drinker but they drink a lot, so they drink more than a casual drinker, the feedback would depend on specifically which flavours they gravitate to because all wines are manufactured in a rather broad spectrum so some are on the sweet end, some are on the dry end, and then some are right in the middle between dry and sweet. (15:03) And in some cases, depending on how aged the wine is, when you drink it, the alcoholic taste can seem stronger or weaker than it actually is, so it can be a creeper, it can be obviously a kick to the throat.
(15:24) And depending on the flavours of the wine, the sweetness and the dryness does also affect how the alcohol tastes when you drink it. (15:37) And a major aspect of all wines is that we always suggest to drink it cold because when you drink it cold, it brings out the sweetness more, so even if it's a dry wine and you were to drink it cold, it would taste on the slightly sweeter side of a dry wine. (15:53) You know a lot about the business, like the back of your hand.
Tell me how you were roped into the business, at what age you were introduced to the business, because you really know a lot about the business and not just surface-level information or just operation-level information as a manager. Tell me about that. (16:17) I was in my second year at UTEC when my father was on discussion with Mr. Howard Cox about the business.
And at that point in time, I was studying mechanical engineering, and when he decided to take the step and purchase the business, Mr. Howard Cox was providing training before he migrated at his house. (16:42) So it was, I believe, two to three days out of the week after school. If I didn't have night classes, I would go down to the house and partake in the training because at that moment in time, I wasn't entirely sold on it.
But my father was like, if I go from the business that we can work on, so I said, okay, I'll support them. (17:03) I went down there, I learned how to filter, I learned how to bottle, I learned how to create the wines from scratch. (17:13) And then the summer, I didn't do the summer term, and I stayed with the company for three months.
Then when time came to decide whether I was going to continue going to school or if I was going to work at the company, I decided to stay at the company a while longer, and from then I've never looked back. (17:32) So within the first year or two, I knew the production off the back of my hand. We were looking into changing some of the production materials that we used into more finer products.
(17:45) So when it came to do test batches for any random flavours, I was there. If something broke, I needed fixing it because our operation is a bit delicate because it has a lot of moving pieces and also a lot of stationary pieces, i.e. the wine itself. (18:08) So the wines that we produce now have to sit for at least three months.
The wines that we were making before could have been finished in a month. So our wines go through a much longer refinement period now, which is not only sensitive to the amount of sugar that we use, but also sensitive to temperature and multiple different variables that are sometimes out of our hands. (18:36) So I have learned how we need to treat the wine, how if we start a batch and something happens to that batch, what do I need to do? So how do I get it to where I need to be or how much longer do I have to let it stay and replace it with another batch? (18:53) And during that time period, I was taking business certificate classes.
I was researching wine production, wine flavouring, wine seasoning, all of those. During that time, I also learned the specific tools required to test different aspects of the wine, what it meant if it went a certain range or you changed it from one end of the spectrum to another end of the spectrum. (19:26) So in a way, it is sort of my own baby also, not just my father's and uncle's.
Because I believe I've been with the company for eight, seven years now. (19:43) Yeah. Okay.
Great. All right. Tell me about the relationship with JBDC, Things Jamaican.
(19:55) Okay. Our relationship with JBDC and Things Jamaican, I would say, is a symbiotic relationship because even before we took over the company, I believe the company was handed over to JBDC already and Things Jamaican. (20:10) Whenever JBDC and Things Jamaican are having their promotion in the stores or they're having a programme, we're always invited, thought about, or at least, I know, discussed for the possibility of appearing, if it is that we're able to appear.
(20:29) Even in circumstances where, let's say, they're having a marketing push and we're not able to provide someone, the salesperson in charge of our brand would assist us in arranging so that someone is there to arrange the sampling and marketing of the wine and we could simply just provide the extra samples and everything else that they would need. (20:50) Nice. Okay.
So, how does this relationship affect the business at all? I see this as market access. So, JBDC would provide market access for your business, Things Jamaican. Tell me about how this affects your business.
(21:14) Because we're in JBDC and the GMA, I guess you could say we get a more authentic and proven stamp than if we were not in the stores. Since we're in the stores that are in both Devon House and the airports under Things Jamaican. (21:35) And since we are also represented at their, you guys have like a showcase, right? (21:46) Yeah, we have different showcases.
(21:47) Yeah, we're sometimes represented at those showcases. So, we have a decent amount of marketing from the JBDC that I would say we are very grateful and thankful about. (22:06) Okay.
All right. Thank you so much for having this talk with me. Very interesting story.