Nov 2013 Financial News

Angostura continues to command market share

Nov 25, 2013

Angostura Ltd, a state-owned company since the collapse of CL Financial, continues to command a 90 per cent share of the rum market in T&T, chief executive officer Robert Wong said on Thursday evening.

He was speaking to the T&T Guardian at the launch of the company’s third premium rum at the House of Angostura on the Eastern Main Road, Laventille. The new rum, Angostura No 1, joins eight-year-old Angostura 1919, and 12-year-old Angostura 1824. Angostura No 1 “rums are aged eight to 10 years and left to marry for 12 months in first-fill bourbon casks,” literature handed out at the event said.

Responding to a question about the company’s biggest competitor, Wong said: “I wouldn’t say we have like ‘a biggest.’ We still have over 90 per cent market share.” After Angostura, “You have the US, Guyanese, Jamaican rums,” he said, “You have a little bit of everybody. Nobody’s really like a big competitor. It’s just like we are in the other islands.”

He said in the other rum-producing Caribbean islands, Angostura has a smaller market share. Asked about the impact of the Machel Montano-endorsed 30 rum, he agreed it has not made a dent in market share, and added that he has never tasted it. “The only time you see it is around Carnival time,” said Vydia Persad-Doodnath, a former senior manager with Angostura who is now a technical consultant to the company.

Hadco, the distributor of 30 rum, buys bulk rum from Barbados. Given the death of the local sugar industry, Angostura has had to import molasses to make its rum from different sources as well, among them, the Dominican Republic. Asked if the sugar industry could be revived in T&T, not only to satisfy Angostura’s needs but also to serve as a source of ethanol bio-fuel, Persad-Doodnath said she would like to see the industry revived but understands that the capital requirements would be very high.

“The thing is that we would love for them (Caroni) to start back the sugar industry because we got good quality molasses from them and the price was reasonable,” she said. However, she added: “You need space to produce sugar at low cost for it to make sense.” A lot of the sugar cane lands have been distributed, she said, so new spaces would first have to be found to bring it back.

Nonetheless, Angostura’s rums have been doing well around the world, Wong said. Angostura has been outselling many of its peer brands, he said. Asked which, he said he did not want to specify, but conceded that it was not the US’ Bacardi. Guests at the launch were told only 9,600 bottles of Angostura No 1 are available worldwide. It is the first premium rum to be unveiled in The Cask Collection, a new limited edition range dedicated to rums aged in special casks.


Source:
Aleem Khan
Trinidad Guardian
Monday November 25, 2013

http://guardian.co.tt/business/2013-11-25/angostura-continues-command-market-share