Following our interview with Julia Castillo, 7News contacted BSI’s factory manager John Gillette. Gillette says if Julia Castillo bought her sugar in 2008 or 2009, the product should have been clean of any debris because of the expensive effort that went into refining the quality or processed sugar. Gillette strongly believes the sugar purchased by Julia Castillo may have been produced in 2008 when there was a major problem with the quality of sugar cane delivered to the factory that resulted in BSI investing several millions of dollars to clean up the product they take to the market.
John Gillette, Factory Manager – BSI
“The problem that you are referring to, I think it is a direct result of the poor cane quality that we have been receiving. When I say quality I refer to main issues. The first one is purity which includes the maturity or the freshness of the cane and secondly the cleanliness of the cane which will refer to the incoming mud level of the cane.
So I believe this particular problem is because of the high mud levels of the cane. I would want to know what number was on that bag because it would be very surprising to me if we would be producing this sugar this crop that would have that sort of sediments or mud as the customer referred to.
We are not ruling out anything. We would like to address the customer complaint and we would like the customer to get in touch with us here; if the customer could give us the bag number, the number that is on the bag.
Really we should not be investing additional resources in the clarification and filtration areas because when we do so, that does not give a return “
According to BSI factory manager John Gillette, they are interested in any complaints made by customers and as such invite anyone who has a complaint to call them at 322 – 2150 and ask for extension 157. BSI only refines sugar for the local market and they only export brown sugar which is refined when it gets to the United Kingdom. About 15% of BSI’s annual production is for the local market.
