Well, Bowen and Bowen is still working on it! Today Jules Vasquez spoke via phone with their corporate relations manager. Joe Marie Lanza reports:

B&B Corporate Relations Manager told us today that yes they have been experiencing some issues with their PET lines:

Rosanna Villanueva, B&B Corporate Relations Manager
"What we have noted is that in meeting the demand for those bigger brands some of the smaller brands like 501 and Belikin light have had some inconsistencies with their availability so we are looking at our fermentation process our production process to try and make sure that we can supply all our beer brands consistently. So we have not had an issue with from the start of the year. When it comes to soft drinks soft drinks in glass again, we have had constant availability of all our drinks and glass bottles from the start of the year. We have not had an issue with glass soft drinks. What we have had issues it is PET and if you recall at the start of the year, we had advised that we would be doing some upgrades to our PET line. Unfortunately, those works have extended pretty much into what we call the busy Easter season. The works are under our production team has been managing the upgrades, and they have been addressing some issues that came up along the way, but I can say that the upgrades are almost complete Jules going into next week we do expect to see a better product flow going into Easter. Coming out of Easter, we should be at full capacity again and full productivity. What we have been doing to try and mitigate the issues with soft drinks is we have been using our canning line to produce soft drinks so that we can try to cover the gap a bit. But yes, we do have issues with PET. We do know that."

Jules Vasquez
"What would you say to people who have just become impatient. We know that we interviewed you some months ago and we know the problem has been ongoing but how much of it is a failure of proper planning or some systemic malfunction in the Bowen and Bowen cooperation that it took you three damn months to fix a PET production line?"

Rosanna Villanueva, B&B Corporate Relations Manager
"You know as I said earlier it's just the PET line and it's upgrades that we had planned at the start of the year. These were planned and the reason for the upgrades is to increase productivity and increase efficiency so we have less down time. We have brought in technicians from across the country from the suppliers of the line and so they are in country doing the upgrades for us. As I said unfortunately they take us a bit longer than expected and there were some issues that popped up that we are addressing but it is one line other than the PET line or glass our cans are in full production and we have all the products in glass all the beers all the soft drinks in glass are available. Cans are still a small part of the market but we are producing cans to fill the gaps in soft drinks so at this point it's just for our PET line to get finished with the upgrades so that we can increase capacity and increase production."

Villanueva says she knows there are frustrations - especially out on the cayes where tourist demand is highest:

Rosanna Villanueva, B&B Corporate Relations Manager
"We understand people's frustrations. I think it's important to note that hen it comes to the islands that it is a bit unique, it is not just a production issue, but it is also logistics simply because the goods that we send out to the Cayes we truck them from our factory to the barge and we have to load them on the barge to get sent out and then when it gets to the islands, it has to be unloaded and taken to our depots unfortunately, it does add a few days to the process, but we expect to see an improvement in water going into Easter."

And wherever there is acute scarcity and high demand, product hoarding and price gouging are sure to follow:

Rosanna Villanueva, B&B Corporate Relations Manager
"So when it comes to that we understand the concerns. When something is short in supply, we just sell less to everyone across-the-board and that's just to try and keep distribution equitable, as equitable as possible. We do review our processes now and again because we realize that yes there is some hoarding we try to not have people hoard where possible but we do realize that it happens sometimes, but you know it is something that our teams try their best to avoid happening and just because we want to make sure that our products are distributed fairly across the board."

Bowen's competitor Caribbean Brewery says that for the past month it has seen a sharp increase in demand for its H2O brand water and its soft drinks - with most of the requests coming from San Pedro.