WISYNCO Group will this month start shipping Hawaiian Punch fruit drink to Caribbean markets, having recently obtained a certificate of origin for the product.

The Jamaican manufacturer and distributor last year entered into an exclusive licensing agreement with American drink company Dr Pepper Snapple to produce Hawaiian Punch on the island and supply the brand throughout the region.

Wisynco has immediate plans to distribute the product to Barbados, Dominica, St Lucia, St Kitts, Cayman Islands, and Antigua and Barbuda, revealed the company's export manager, Stephen Dawkins.

"Those are the main territiories that we are focusing on right now," Dawkins told Caribbean Business Report.

According to Dawkins, the company had been waiting to acquire the certificate for several months. A certificate of origin is a document, required for international trade, declaring in which country a commodity or good was manufactured. Products of Caribbean Community (Caricom) origin are granted preferential access to markets throughout the region.

Wisynco is among Jamaica's largest distributors of international consumer brands. Among the global manufacturers it distributes for are Coca-Cola, Welch's, Kelloggs, General Mills and Nestlé.

The move to begin exporting Hawaiian Punch is a major step towards Wisynco expanding its global reach in beverages, said Dawkins.

"It opens up new avenues for us to be the major beverage distributor in the region," he said.

Wisynco also manufactures its own line of beverages, including bottled water brand Wata; a flavoured water product, Cran Wata; energy drink Boom; and soft drink Bigga.

The firm announced in September that it was spending $400 million in six months to add capacity to its White Marl, St Catherine plant, with the investment aimed at facilitating an aggressive push of its products into overseas markets.