Our Founder and Chairman, Karl Hendrickson, has always said, “My first love was baking, but my second has always been farming.”

So, when the opportunity arose in the early 1980s, he bought a small poultry processing operation, called Caribbean Broilers, and over the next decade strategically worked to grow the business; automating the processing, streamlining the supply chain and putting together a team to take the company into the future.

With Caribbean Hatchery already in operation to supply baby chicks, the addition of Newport Mills to supply better quality feeds made the company vertically integrated. However, as fate would have it, just as the company was starting to grow, nature intervened, as Jamaica was hit by one of the most powerful storms ever recorded –  Hurricane Gilbert. The damage to the island was catastrophic and in its wake, not a single farm was left standing.

This tragedy for Jamaica, however, turned into an opportunity for the company and when they rebuilt, they chose the very best farming technology available, introducing the first tunnel ventilated, climate-controlled broiler house to the Caribbean, a turning point in the industry’s history.

From that point onwards, the company has continued to innovate, invest, grow and diversify and with major investments in the pork, egg and animal feed industries, today, the CB Group (CBG) stands as a diversified agribusiness. We proudly pioneered the Safe Food movement in 2009 to raise awareness about food safety standards and in the process became the first company in the Caribbean to receive ISO 9001:2008 (Quality Management Systems), HACCP and GMP (Food Safety) accreditations.

The Group now consists of three main business lines – Consumer Foods, Livestock & Animal Feeds and Crops.

Our consumer foods division, CB Foods, concentrate on providing locally produced meats through our vertically integrated operations and partnerships with independent commercial farmers. The Newport Mills Division focuses on livestock, animal feeds, farm supplies and technical services and our newest addition to the family, the Imagination Farms division, though still in its infancy stage is already conducting world-class research and development in areas like West Indies Sea Island Cotton and Scotch Bonnet Peppers.

We’re excited about the future at CBG and we’re proud to continue our work as advocates for change – creating jobs, supporting entrepreneurship, investing in education, promoting environmental sustainability and making a difference for our country.