ANNOTTO BAY, Jamaica -- Wafer-thin chips sizzle in two oversized steel fryers in a factory where two masked workers steadily add barbecue and other secret Jamaican seasonings to the finished batch.

On the other side of the glass wall, a bagging machine pops out bright yellow and burgundy bags filled with St. Mary's Barbeque Banana Chips, fully sealed and ready for supermarket shelves.

Four years ago, making chips out of fresh bananas was a sideline business for Jamaica Producers (JP) Group, an 80-year-old publicly traded company that rose to prominence as a major grower and exporter of Jamaican bananas to the United Kingdom.

But that was before last year's global financial crisis rippled through this former British colony and JP Group's balance sheets. The crisis was the latest blow after years of struggle by JP Group executives to keep the company afloat amid devastating hurricanes and the slow collapse of the Caribbean export banana market.

``We are a classic case of an entity that was doing the traditional banana business and exporting to the United Kingdom. Then we changed our business model,'' said Jeffrey Hall, chief executive of JP Group.

Last November, after a series of financial losses at home and in Britain, JP Group ceased its banana export operations and began to focus on the local market.

Workers in the nearby packing house still wash, cut and pack thousands of boxes of harvested green bananas every week, but now along with picking for local ripening houses and supermarket shelves, they are also choosing bananas for the snack factory.

NEW MENTALITY

``It's a big transition and shift in the minds of our people to kind of reposition ourselves as just not a banana company, but now we're a tropical snack, or tropical foods business,'' said Rolf Simmonds, commercial director of the JP Tropical Foods division, which produces the St. Mary's brand of snacks.

The strategy seems to be working for JP Group, which recently built a chip factory in the Dominican Republic.

Revenue from continuing operations at JP Group grew by 179 percent to $17.06 million in the quarter ending in June compared to the same period in 2008. Bouncing back from a $4.53 million loss in 2008, the company has posted profits of $617,000 through June.

``They are . . . a benchmark of some of the stuff we are doing,'' Jamaica's Agriculture Minister Christopher Tufton told The Miami Herald.

DIVERSIFYING

Lauding the company's more diversified products -- it also makes cassava chips and plans to launch a sweet potato chip soon -- Tufton called JP Group ``an excellent example'' of his government's goals as Jamaica moves to diversify its recession-battered economy by pushing agro-processing and added value products.

``In crisis there is also opportunity,'' said Lisa Bell, deputy president of Jamaica Trade and Invest, the government trade and export promotion agency working with local entrepreneurs to help meet the new goals.

``We are going through a recession, but Jamaica must take this time to go through its targeted sectors and see where we are and what we have a competitive advantage in and use things like the brand to leverage their success.''

That is exactly what JP Group has done, say its executives.

Leveraging the banana brand it spent decades building, JP Group re-branded itself as a snacks company by adding value to its bananas. Today, what began as a cost-saving measure to avoid wasting bananas has turned into JP's main product. Snacks now account for 70 percent of business, up from just 4 percent four years ago.

Selling its ripened bananas locally used to account for a mere 6 percent of business a few years ago. Now that share has blossomed to 30 percent.

What the shift means is obvious throughout the Annotto Bay area, located about 22 miles north of Kingston. Large billboards promoting the company's banana chips hug the paved roadways where thousands of acres of banana fields now stand idle.

Of the 5,000 acres of former banana lands, only 600 are currently being cultivated -- not all by JP Group farmers.

In a move that also is being promoted by the Jamaican government, JP Group is leasing land to displaced farmers, who then sell their cassava and sweet potatoes to JP Group for snack foods.

BETTER LIVELIHOOD

Dudley Combs, a 65-year-old farmer who previously farmed a plot in his backyard, is among those leasing from JP Group. In just a few months, he has reaped $5,000 from the cassava and sweet potatoes he grows on the 15 acres.

He likes the arrangement, and the government's new push. ``It means the guys will get some work to do,'' Combs said.

Nadav Goren, JP Group's farm manager and in-house banana expert, says the government's strategy holds a lot of promise for farmers such as Combs and companies that needed to rebrand because of natural disasters and unfavorable trade rules.

``The vision is there definitely,'' he said. ``The resources are there. The labor is there. Now somebody has to take charge and push it.''

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