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Angostura works to meet sustainability goals - Trinidad and Tobago Newsday

A redesigned bottle for its premium rum range and a 200-anniversary limited-edition Angostura Bitters are among the ways Angostura Holdings Ltd celebrated its 200th anniversary.

They are also a wider part of Angostura’s efforts towards environmental sustainability.

The company unveiled these at a celebratory event at Mille Fleurs, Maraval Road, Port of Spain, on April 18.

Angostura aromatic bitters was founded by Dr Johann Siegert in 1824, when he first produced aromatic bitters as a medicinal tincture to alleviate stomach ailments, Angostura's website said.

In a brief ceremony before guests were treated to dinner, Angostura’s chairman Terrence Bharath, SC, said the new bottles were “architecturally designed.”

[caption id="attachment_1078207" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Angostura's redesigned premium rum range. - Photo courtesy Angostura[/caption]

“The change in the architecture of the bottles has been one of the things that I had in my craw since I was appointed in 2018. I looked at the bottles and I said to them, ‘Listen, we have to get to a point where we remaster these bottles. We have to get these bottles more modern. We have to get these bottles with a cork.’

“We also have the launch of our 200th-anniversary, limited-edition bitters, and it is an absolute work of art that took a long time to create,” he said.

In his remarks, CEO Laurent Schun said the company was using less glass in the packaging of its three, five and seven premium rums to fulfil the rules on sustainability for glass, and the bottles were 30 per cent lighter than previously.

While the company always had plans to redesign its bottles, the actual process happened “quite quickly,” in a year and a half, Bharath said.

In the spirits industry, companies, locally and internationally, had to become compliant with environmental, social and governance (ESG) rules, he added.

“In essence, a major part of a company’s DNA must now be aligned with maintaining the environment around us. I think we are fast recognising that the damage we have done to environment has now come to haunt us…,” he said, referring to the recent Dubai flooding.

For Bharath, ESG meant leaving a place for the next generation that was socially balanced, with proper governance standards and with attempts to repair the environment.

The board deeply recognised the necessity to comply with ESG, he said.

“We are constantly looking at ESG, because it is something that the foreign countries – like yourself, where you live – that much attention is paid to, and companies that lose their way with ESG are often taken off of the supply chain.”

He said the company complies with ESG, as no artificial ingredients are used in its rums or bitters.

[caption id="attachment_1078224" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Angostura's CEO Laurent Schun, left, shows off the new bottle of the company's premium rum range with Rural Development and Local Government Minister Faris Al-Rawi. - Photo courtesy Melissa Doughty[/caption]

“The ingredients in aromatic bitters are natura

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