Lighting, energy and pipe-manufacturing outfit Fosrich Company Limited is making inroads in the construction material supply market.

The company’s foray into that industry follows its acquisition of Bayside Superstore, a 37,000-square-foot hardware store located on St Claver Avenue in Montego Bay, St James. It doled out approximately $1 billion for the purchase of the property and inventory, CEO Cecil Foster told Our Today.

“We are definitely going to be in that space to supply a lot of projects. You have a lot of hotels coming up, you have a lot of construction taking place and we are well poised where we are now in the St Claver Avenue location to supply a lot of these [construction materials],” he stated.

The new store will be Fosrich’s third location in Montego Bay, adding to its Fairview Shopping Centre and Cottage Road outlets.

Now renamed Fosrich Electrical and Hardware, the store will reopen next Monday, May 12, and will continue to supply cement, lumber, steel, and other hardware supplies to its customers. It will add Fosrich-branded lighting and electrical and plumbing to its offering.

“So we’ll have our full range of Fosrich offerings like our solar stuff and energy items,” Foster explained.

The CEO said the company is leveraging the store’s 15 year presence in the area and its location in the heart of Montego Bay to drive revenue. In fact, he pointed out that its proximity to a bus terminal and police station make it a “shopping mecca”.

Fosrich will be selling construction material throughout all its other locations in Montego Bay, Kingston outlets and its Drax Hall, St Ann store that opened last week. However, while the St Claver location will carry the construction material as part of its inventory, the others will only serve as order centres where customers can enquire and pay for goods and arrange delivery.

“We won’t be carrying the items in Drax Hall [and other stores], in terms of having steel and lumber and so on there, but we have a partnership that will move the products to projects. So we’re not necessarily going to be housing them in that location,” Foster told Our Today.

He did not reveal the company with which it will be partnering.

Commenting on Drax Hall, the CEO said that the store is located across from the Knutsford Express terminal. He expects that it will attract customers from the neighbouring parishes of St Mary and Trelawny. Though a leased property, Fosrich has spent in the region of $20 million to retrofit the space.

“We have to be close to the customers and with the technology that we have in electrical products now, a lot of persons that are in the business are not thinking of presenting that kind of offering in their business. They are more ready to sell and operate like a mom and pop.

The technology to which Foster refers include solar water heater, solar flood lamps, and solar photovoltaic systems.

Fosrich’s locations in Montego Bay and St Ann also allow it to supply a number of hotel and residential construction projects. When asked if the real estate boom on the north coast factored into the company’s opening of the two new stores, he said that it partially played a role.

“It is also important to note that there are some industries that are always there, and even if there’s not a boom, we still have the hotel industry, we still have a lot of food establishments and so [it’s] that along with the fact that that area has seen thousands of homes [constructed] in the last three or five years; and there are a lot more homes that are coming through the pipeline,” Foster informed Our Today.

“We’re trying to make the customer’s experience seamless and we want them to get value. So, as we listen to the customers, we try to see how we can form partnerships to help find solutions for them,” he added.

Fosrich had previously revealed plans to enter the construction supply industry in the USA. With the Biden Administration announcing a trillion dollars in construction projects in that country, Fosrich created an LLC to provide lighting, electrical and its proprietary pipes to “live projects”.