From David Le Quesne, chief executive, Randalls Vautier.
I WRITE in response to the letter from Allen Simms published in your paper on
3 March. In it the writer admits to not reading the article by Christine Herbert that prompted my response.

This is a pity because it seems he has missed the point completely. Instead, he chooses to highlight the price to be paid for a pint of Guinness in South Africa.
I should refrain from saying it is an awfully long way to go to save about £1 on a pint, but I would like to correct Mr Simms’ wrong assumption that Guinness is transported from Dublin to South Africa.

Guinness is not brewed here in Jersey. It is brewed under licence in a number of areas of the African continent, one brewery in particular, South Western Brewery, serving the Southern Cape.

Duty rates in South Africa are also considerably lower than those in Jersey. To further explain, I did a quick search on the internet and turned up some fascinating things to compare and possibly explain the discrepancy to which Mr Simms refers.

I found a four-bedroom, two-bathroom, brick-built house on the Southern Cape for ZAR680,000, which roughly equates to £61,800. Also, the 2010 minimum wage for a bartender is quoted as ZAR1,850 per month, which I worked out to be about £42 per week.

The operating costs and property prices here in Jersey are considerably higher than those in South Africa, so perhaps this informs your writer how this discrepancy can be explained.