Jamaican Teas Limited (cross-listed from JSE)

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What it is

Jamaican Teas Limited was founded in 1967 as Tetley Tea Co. (Ja.) Ltd and was acquired in 1995 by the father-and-son team of Adeeb and John Mahfood, who built it far beyond its original black-tea roots.

Today, with over forty types of tea, it is the largest producer of teas in the Caribbean, with 60% of its products exported to fourteen Caribbean markets, North and South America, and the United Kingdom.

The group operates through four divisions: Manufacturing, Retailing, Real Estate, and Investments. Shoppers Delite is its retail supermarket business in Jamaica, H.

Mahfood and Sons handles its real estate portfolio, and QWI Investments — itself listed on the JSE — manages a diversified equity portfolio on behalf of the group.

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Who owns it

The business was acquired by the Mahfood family — Adeeb and his son John — in 1995, and they have expanded it from a single-brand tea packer into a multi-division group. The Mahfood family remains the controlling interest; executive directors John Mahfood, Charles Barrett, and Jonathan Mahfood are all full-time employees of Jamaican Teas and are not considered independent.

Not published: The precise shareholding percentages held by each member of the Mahfood family are not disclosed in the publicly available snippets of the FY2024 Annual Report (PDF failed to fully parse), nor on the JSE filings page or the TTSE cross-listing disclosure accessible online. The Jamaica Securities Act requires listed companies to disclose shareholders holding 5% or more in their annual reports; the full FY2024 annual report (filed with JSE, January 2025, audited by Baker Tilly) would carry these figures but the PDF could not be read in full during this research.

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Who runs it

John P. Mahfood has served as Group CEO and Executive Director of Jamaican Teas since April 2022, having joined the company in January 2007.

He is a Certified Public Accountant (California) and Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Jamaica.

Jonathan Mahfood was appointed General Manager – Commercial of the manufacturing subsidiary Caribbean Dreams Foods Limited in 2024, overseeing sales, marketing, and export relations. Not published: the name of the group CFO or Board Chairperson is not identified in the 2024 Annual Report snippets, the JSE filings page, or the TTSE cross-listing disclosure reviewed during this research.

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The money, in plain words

In the twelve months to 30 September 2025, JAMT reported net profit attributable to shareholders of JMD 260.6 million (US$39 mn) (≈ TTD 11.2 million, ≈ USD 1.66 million), with manufacturing revenues rising 16% for the year. That translates to a net profit margin of roughly 7.5% — meaning the group keeps about 7.5 cents of profit from every Jamaican dollar of revenue (our calculation), a meaningful recovery from just 4.3% in FY2024.

By the end of FY2025, the group held JMD 449 million (US$67 mn) in cash and short-term deposits (≈ TTD 19.2 million, ≈ USD 2.86 million), while debt levels declined. Return on equity — how hard shareholders’ money is working — stands at approximately 5.5%, which is modest and reflects the drag of the investment portfolio’s recent volatility rather than weakness in the core tea business.

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What it is doing now

Over the past three years Jamaican Teas has been consolidating from multiple manufacturing sites into a single, leaner operation; a key milestone came in 2024 when it sold its Bell Road tea factory in Kingston and concentrated production at its Temple Hall facility. Manufacturing revenue rose 16% for FY2025, with exports — now 61% of manufacturing revenue — growing 22%, driven chiefly by CARICOM markets.

A new challenge arrived in April 2025, when a 10% tariff was imposed on the group’s exports to the United States. Hurricane Melissa, which struck Jamaica in late 2025, caused no direct damage to the group’s Temple Hall factory or supermarket, and two-thirds of manufacturing sales go to export markets unaffected by the storm.

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What to watch

• Hurricane aftermath: Management warned that hurricane-related damage to Jamaica will significantly dampen local sales demand for at least the first half of fiscal 2025/26.
• US tariff pressure: Conditions in the United States — a key diaspora market — became more challenging due to higher tariffs, tighter immigration enforcement, and pressure on household budgets.
• QWI investment swings: The investment arm QWI was a major driver of the FY2025 profit surge after suffering heavy unrealised losses earlier in the year; its fourth-quarter rebound reversed most prior setbacks. Investment-portfolio volatility can move the group’s reported profit sharply in either direction.
• Export diversification: Management has been pushing into regional Caribbean export markets with new distributors and deeper penetration, with those markets now accounting for a growing share of revenue.

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This is news, not investment advice.