Carib: Our drinks are fine

Carib Beer is safe to drink. Carib Brewery is making less beer than usual, due to the labour dispute, but there has been no drop in the quality produced, said the company at a Wednesday media conference. Carib sponsorship and events director, Colin Murray, said: “We feel it is important to assure you that quality work goes on at Carib in the safest conditions, and the quality of work has not dropped.” Carib invited the media to tour its bottling hall and the main quality control laboratory, to prove that production and monitoring were continuing. The company said that just one out of its three bottling production lines was running, and it was producing 65 percent of normal output.

The line makes 800 bottles of Carib Beer each minute. While most employees had been locked out of the premises — in response to a vote to strike, according to Carib officials — departmental managers/supervisors had taken over “line” duties. AnsaMcAl group marketing director, David Inglefield, said: “We invited you here today to show we have our quality controls in place.” In her lab, brewing director, Virginia Clarke, assured that microbiological and physical and chemical analyses were ongoing at each stage of the production process.  “Quality is our number one concern,” she assured. She said the processes of quality control had been well documented and even audited by frequent visits by third parties.

“We would not spend years building a system to break it down in a few weeks.” As if to make their point, Carib management served Carib beverages to reporters and photographers present. Murray said the workers protesting at the gates of the company were his friends and he would like to take them back in the morning. Inglefield said Carib was offering a raise of 12 percent over the next three years, while the NUGFW was seeking 17 percent. He lamented the labour impasse, saying Carib would like to have used the upcoming Olympic Games to market Carib Beer in Greece. He remarked: “With wage inflation, come the FTAA we will not even be able to sell in Trinidad and Tobago. We can’t sell if we are not competitive.”