Embassy of the United States

speeches

Globalization, Gatorade and Guyana

Text of Remarks Delivered at Demerara Distillers Inauguration of Production and Sale of Gatorade and Tropicana in New Packages

By Anthony J. Interlandi, Charge D’Affaires

Demerara Distillers made industrial history on June 28, 2005.  It became the first company in the world to put the popular energy drink, Gatorade, into the specialized “Tetra Wedge” package for individual servings.  Gatorade in Guyana is truly a story of modern-day globalization.  It combines the marketing ability, technology and capital of three firms based in three different continents.  More than that, it is a story of human ingenuity and innovation.  Curiously, this story started out on U.S. college football field four decades ago.

College Football Team Seeks Player Stamina

The University of Florida football team was struggling with a serious problem in 1965.  Players complained of exhaustion from practicing and playing in the humid heat of North Central Florida.  They ran out of energy late in the games.  Fans aptly call their home team’s football field the “swamp.”  Exasperated, the coaches asked the Science Department for help.  After sundry experiments, the science department churned out a brew of sugars, sodium and potassium to replenish a player’s fluids and flagging energy.

The coaches put the drink at the sidelines in 1965.  Players consumed it during practice and the games.  Suddenly, they reported better stamina.  Performance improved.  By the 1966 season, all players were drinking it in practice and during games.  The team earned a 9-2 record and qualified for the Orange Bowl, which is one of the most prestigious post-season college championship games.  On January 1, 1967 the University of Florida won the Orange Bowl for the first time its history.  The name of the University of Florida’s football team is the Gators.  Hence, Gatorade became the name of University of Florida’s thirst-quenching invention.

National Football League

Gatorade’s connection to American football would continue.  Hank Stram, coach of the National Football League’s Kansas City Chiefs, was also searching for solutions.  His players, too, complained of exhaustion from the late summer and early fall humidity in Kansas City.  Some of the players had even collapsed from dehydration.  Hank Stram was friends with Florida Gators’ coach Ray Graves, who recommended Gatorade.  The Chiefs drank Gatorade throughout the 1969 football season.  And that season, they went on to win the Superbowl, which is the National Football League championship.  From there on, all National Football League teams would drink Gatorade.  And, in what has become a tradition, championship-winning coaches regularly get doused with the Gatorade at the end of a game.

American Capitalism Turns Gatorade into Global Drink

It was obvious that Gatorade would have benefits for all athletes struggling with heat and humidity, as well as regular consumers who might be mowing lawns or doing hot, summer yard work.  The University of Florida doesn’t manufacture or distribute products.  It is not in the business of bringing a product to market or explaining its benefits to a mass consumer audience.

Enter Stokely Van Kamp, an Indiana-based juice and packaged foods company.  It saw an opportunity, purchased the rights to Gatorade and began to manufacture and distribute the beverage.  It created a new national market for sports drinks.

Quaker Oats bought Stokely Van Camp in 1983 and helped boost both Gatorade and the sports drink market.  PepsiCo, the parent company of Pepsi-Cola, bought Quaker Oats in 1991.  PepsiCo is one of the world’s great advertising and marketing companies.  PepsiCo turned Gatorade into one of the world’s best-known, branded energy drinks.

PepsiCo, Tetra Pak and Demerara Distillers   

Demerara Distillers is one of Guyana’s most venerable companies.  It started operations in 1670 as a producer of sugar.  It continues to make and sell granular sugar, molasses and rum.  However, in order to survive and thrive in today’s global markets, Demerara executives realized the company would have to develop business beyond low value commodities.

As part of its strategy to build a “viable and internationally competitive business,” Demerara Distillers signed an agreement with PepsiCo in 1993.  Since then, the Guyana company has manufactured many of PepsiCo’s most popular soft drink products, including Pepsi, 7-UP, Slice and Mountain Dew as well as Gatorade, which has been sold mainly in plastic bottles.

PepsiCo executives have worked with Demerara to train its personnel in internationally accepted standards of production.  Putting Gatorade into wedge-shaped, 200 milliliter individual servings is the latest highlight in the mutually gainful partnership between Demerara and PepsiCo.

The Tetra Wedge package is crucial to the success of this venture.  Tetra Wedge is a product of the European-headquartered Tetra Pak.  Tetra Pak was founded in 1952.  It does business in 165 countries of the world and employs almost 21,000 people.  It is a global leader and innovator of safe, sanitary drink packaging.  It developed the Tetra Wedge in 1997.  The new packaging is ideal for children.  They can grip the package more easily.  So it is easier for them to consume, and this is beneficial because children suffer more easily from dehydration. 

The Best Economic Development

Yesu Persaud, the chairman of Demerara Distillers is fond of saying the route out of poverty for Guyana is to add value to its products and services.  Demerara Distillers is doing just that, as it raises the capability of Guyana’s industry and workers. 

Globalization is just another way of saying that trade, travel, investment and exchange of know-how is on the increase among the companies and peoples of all nations.  Contrary to the shrill anti-globalization rhetoric of its critics, Gatorade in Guyana shows the huge benefits that accrue to a developing nation from globalization.

For Guyana, Demerara Distillers adds new, advanced jobs in production and marketing.  It immediately boosts exports of value-added products from Guyana to the rest of the Caribbean.  Demerara takes advantage of the trade-liberalizing “Caribbean Single Market Economy” pact to spur the enlarged trade.  Consumers throughout the region benefit, while Guyana’s foreign exchange earnings grow.  There is the potential for more - new employment in transportation, advertising and sales throughout the region.

For this growth to flourish, Guyana’s leaders must reject the revived demagoguery of anti-imperialism and anti-capitalism in our hemisphere. 

Guyana must focus on the facts.  Globalization makes possible the association of Demerara with the world class marketing and production standards of PepsiCo.  It raises the level of technology and business acumen for all of Guyana.

Globalization makes possible the utilization of the world’s best packaging machinery and materials right here in Guyana.  It creates a better product for the Caribbean consumer and thus contributes to a higher standard of living.

And finally, globalization gives us the tools to transform an idea, born on a Florida football field, into industrial history in Guyana and the promise of greater prosperity for its citizens.