Delicious Supligen

KINGSTON, Jamaica — Most Jamaicans can recall growing up with the drink that ‘Boosts you up’, the creamy deliciousness of Supligen in its traditional blue can. But most people do not know that the drink was conceptualised, created, and is still brewed right here in the hills of Jamaica? The Serge Dairies team showed the Jamaica Observer the process behind the creation of one of Jamaica’s favourite drinks for this edition of How Dis Mek? Serge Dairies Production Manager Christopher Patrick revealed that the drink, designed to be a “meal in a can” starts with a confidential mix of ingredients enriched with vitamins. “Fifty years ago was the genesis of Supligen Vanilla, and it includes a lot of ingredients such as milk solids, sugar, flavouring, vitamins, and biotin,” explained Patrick. He told the Observer that the process starts with carefully measured ingredients, verified on food scales before they are combined in large vats at the company’s factory in Bog Walk, St Catherine. The facility has strict safety rules to protect employees, visitors, and the products, and the Observer team was treated to an entire safety rundown before we were allowed to enter the factory and observe the process. Employees control various stainless steel vats carefully combining raw ingredients into the flavoured drink Jamaicans know. “After you have mixed it into intermediate tanks, the entire bulk is then pasteurised,” Patrick explained. Once the mixture is pasteurised and waiting to be poured, the cans are prepared. They arrive at the factory on huge pallets and a special machine, called a depalletiser, is used to remove them from the pallet and load them single file onto an assembly line.

Serge Dairies Production Manager Christopher Patrick explaining to the Jamaica Observer how Supligen is made.

Once there, the cans are scanned by an X-ray machine and the assembly line automatically removes any cans found to have defects, such as dents. After this, the cans are fed into a filling room where the product and packaging meet for the first time, as the mixing process takes place in a different section of the factory than the filling. “We use a heat process to eliminate the bacteria. Then we use a cooling process to cool the products. Then this product is then transferred into your storage tank. From storage tank, the product is then transferred via stainless steel product lines to your filling machine,” Patrick explained. The massive volumetric machine — which the production manager described as sophisticated — can fill up to 28 cans of Supligen at a time. The cans run along a product line into the machine, are filled with Supligen, and continue along the product line where they are sealed. “[The] next process is the sterilisation of the product. Earlier, we spoke about pasteurisation, which is to kill pathogenic bacteria. Well, sterilisation literally kills everything,” Patrick said.

A Serge Island Dairies employee prepares ingredients for the mixing of Supligen Vanilla

This “sterilisation in a can” occurs inside an industrial pressure vessel (retort) which uses heat and cooling to sterilise packaged food, extending its shelf life. The retort goes through a nine-step cooking process, and once this is complete, Supligen is shelf stable. “And with this process, you are able to store your product on your table or in your cupboard without it being spoilt; however, once you have opened the can, you now need to refrigerate the product,” Patrick explained. Once the cans are removed from the retort they are reloaded onto an assembly line to be sleeved with the traditional blue packaging Supligen is known for. The heat-sensitive packaging arrives on a large wheel as a single strand.

Supligen cans being sleeved at the Serge Dairies production plant.

That wheel is loaded onto a machine that unspools and separates the packaging, dropping a packet onto each can as they pass underneath. The cans then pass through a steam oven which uses heat to fit the packaging to the metal. Once labelled “Supligen”, the cans continue along the assembly line and are packaged in sets of six, 12, and 24 — and just like that the drink consumers know is ready to be delivered. But before they leave the factory, each batch undergoes a strict quality assurance process. The company’s Sensory Quality Analyst Noreen Williams shared that the it uses specially trained individuals to test batches of Supligen regularly, ensuring products match the company’s high standards and is exactly what consumers expect. Patrick revealed that even though the company ships to the Caribbean and North America, Jamaica remains the main market for the beloved drink.