CONTACT Magazine (Vol.18 No.3 – December 2018)

looking outwards
SM Jaleel:
global
exporter
This year’s prestigious Chamber award
“Internationally Known … T&T Owned”,
sponsored since inception by First
Citizens, was won by a company with
extraordinary international reach
WORDS By: Kalifa Sarah Clyne
photos courtesy: sm jaleel
After almost a century in business, SM Jaleel is a proud locally-owned player
with a strong presence on the global stage. It is the largest manufacturer
of non-alcoholic drinks in the anglophone Caribbean.
Its many brands – fruit juices, soft drinks, flavoured water, energy
drinks – are distributed around the world by nearly 100 distributors, and can be found
in over 30,000 wholesale and retail stores, including Walmart in the United States.
The company manufactures its own PET containers, a technology it pioneered
in the Caribbean in the 1980s. Its staff has grown from 25 to 1,378 located in ten
different countries in five continents.
Evolution
The family-owned business of SM Jaleel was founded in 1924 by a young visionary
entrepreneur, Sheik Mohammed Jaleel. He used to make the company’s first product,
Jaleel Beverages, under his house in San Fernando, and marketed it to clients from a
traditional horse and cart.
08
Trinidad
and Tobago Chamber
of Industry and Commerce
www.chamber.org.tt/contact-magazine