How big were those improvements? Well, they invited the press down to the Port of Big Creek to tour the facility and Daniel Ortiz has that story:

For the very first time since their decision to migrate their bulk sugar exports to the Port of Big Creek, BSI/ASR invited us to observe their 30-million dollar facility, which is now complete.

What immediately caught our attention was that many, many tonnes of sugar were being loaded onto this massive ship, not with the use of manpower but through an automated, mechanized process.

Mac McLachlan - Country Manager, ASR Group - Belize Sugar
"It is the first for BSI. Of course, Santander also ships sugar out from here as well. This is the first one for us. You know, that's a 30,000-tonne vessel. We expect to do another vessel like this. We will probably do another smaller vessel, as well, this season. So yeah, this is the first time it's, you know, it's a big day for all of us down here at Big Creek, and we're pleased to see the system up and running."

BSI/ASR can only operate at this level of increased efficiency because the Port of Big Creek's deep channels offers shore-side berthing for vessels of this size and bigger.

Mac McLachlan
"This facility came about because the owners of Big Creek Port took a decision to dredge this port to 11 meters depth, and that permits much larger vessels than could hitherto come in to load here on the Caye side here. So, that 11 meters depth allows vessels such as the one you've seen this morning which is a 30,000-tonne bulk carrier to come and berth alongside the Caye and get loaded on the Caye."

Zaid Flores - Managing Director, Port of Big Creek
"This vessel is 180 meters, and I think it came in with a draft of around four or five meters and might go to about ten. We have another berth on the next side of the port actually that accommodates the banana vessels, which are 230 meters in length. So, we truly have a deep-water port in this country. And it wasn't an easy investment, let me say, because we have 400,000 people in this country, as compared to 16 million in Guatemala. And the depth of this port is what you have in Guatemala. So, do the math."

So, what all did 30 million dollars pay for at this facility?

Mac McLachlan
"The facility itself is a major warehousing facility and a molasses storage facility. It's got all the things that go with that, the conveyor systems and everything else and of course, a major fleet of vehicles to bring sugar and molasses from Tower Hill, down to this facility to enable the loading to take place, and of course, a very state-of-the-art conveyor system for loading into the ship, which is portable. You can move it up and down the ship's length. So, we're very proud of this achievement. What happens is that the raw sugar trucks come down and they go into the warehouse you can see behind. They deposit the sugar there. We have something called a slinger that then slings the sugar and stacks it inside the warehouse. The warehouse is theoretically a 30,000-tonne warehouse, but I was in there earlier and it's got 30,000 tons in it and it looks to me to be half empty, but there's still a lot more space. Then, we have front loaders that have seven-tonne buckets that then put the sugar into hoppers, that lead it through a conveyor system to load again into trucks that take the sugar around, and dump that directly into the foot of the tele stacker. The tele stacker is the conveyor system that then, through a series of conveyor belts, takes the sugar up and deposits it into the hold of the ship. So all of that, if you get it to be a seamless operation, can really, really improve timing. And, we're yet to see exactly how well we do. But the last I heard we were loading over 300 tons of sugar an hour."

The millers say that the improved exportation logistics at this terminal allow the sugar industry in the north to truly compete with other sugar-producing nations of the world without historic handicaps.

Mac McLachlan
"The way raw sugar is marketed in the world, it's against a global price. We call it the New York number 11 prices, the raw sugar price. And it's a traded price. So it's there all the time. But that price is based on the fact [that] you can load sugar, at least 4000 tons a day. Now, in the past, we couldn't achieve that. So, for every tonne of sugar, we were selling, there was a discount for the amount of time it was taking to load that sugar. We've just, today - or yesterday when the loading started to overcome that bottleneck and that barrier. That enables us to get a much faster loading rate. And when I say much faster, I mean we used to load, say, 500 tons of sugar a day. We're now looking at somewhere between five and seven thousand tons a day. So that is a major saving for the whole industry."

For today's official logistics launch, the company invited other industry stakeholders to inspect all of the facility's bells and whistles for themselves.

Hon. Michel Chebat - Minister of Public Utilities & Logistics "Let me start by congratulating ASR/BSI for this very important capital investment, which signals the company's commitment to Belize, and to the sugar industry. This strategic move will result in greater efficiency in the exportation of raw sugar and molasses, which is expected to result in greater benefits to the cane farmers. This launch today also marks the end of the decade-old tug-and-barge system."

Mac McLachlan
"You see, in the future, if you look at an efficient business, every aspect of that business has to be efficient: the farm, the factory, and, of course, the logistics system that takes that sugar out. If you're going to be a globally competitive and modern industry, all of those pieces need to work effectively and properly. And what we've done is just unlock that one piece of the logistics and the bottleneck. We've also done a lot in the mill to improve the efficiency there."

Hon. Michel Chebat
"As the minister charged with logistics, it behooves me to impress upon the operators of the various ports in Belize the necessity to continuously invest and upgrade their existing facilities and to foster a working environment where all stakeholders can fully participate."