10.01.2013 Views

profession: pilot career: actor - Jet Aviation

profession: pilot career: actor - Jet Aviation

profession: pilot career: actor - Jet Aviation

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.

Different countries,<br />

different flavors<br />

Germans love Ricola’s sage<br />

flavored cough drops. Asian<br />

countries, on the other hand,<br />

prefer strong fruity flavors. In the<br />

United States, customers would<br />

doubt the effectiveness of a<br />

cough drop that tasted too fruity.<br />

With its international distribution,<br />

Ricola pays close attention to<br />

taste in various countries. Its<br />

original recipe with the 13 herbs<br />

was adjusted for the United<br />

States, where three of the herbs<br />

were not known. Echinacea, on<br />

the other hand, is a well known<br />

herb there added to some of the<br />

Ricola cough drops.<br />

The company also pays attention<br />

to regulations. Ricola describes<br />

its candies as one of the first<br />

functional foods, and the product<br />

often straddles the line between<br />

food and medicine, which can<br />

make things complicated. The<br />

company has adapted to an<br />

increase in the regulation of<br />

supplements and additives by<br />

making sure its production facility<br />

meets both food and pharmaceutical<br />

standards, so it can offer<br />

both cough drops and herbal<br />

candies.<br />

01 02<br />

03<br />

The herbs<br />

The company now exports almost 90% of<br />

its products. After Switzerland, the highest<br />

per capita consumption is in Singapore<br />

and Hong Kong. Different flavors are preferred<br />

in different countries, but all around<br />

the world, it is the herbs that make Ricola<br />

special.<br />

The original candy contains elder, horehound,<br />

mallow, peppermint, sage, thyme,<br />

cowslip, burnet, yarrow, marshmallow,<br />

lady‘s mantle, speedwell and plantain. The<br />

herbs all come from Switzerland, where<br />

Ricola buys from about 200 farmers. The<br />

farmers follow organic guidelines, and Ricola<br />

chooses farms away from major roads<br />

and urban agglomerations.<br />

Ricola researches how to grow herbs<br />

with the best taste and the highest<br />

concentration of essential oils and other<br />

flavors. The company looks at the climate<br />

and soil conditions most conducive to<br />

those qualities and it tries to identify the<br />

best time to harvest an herb. Sometimes a<br />

plant is gathered before it blooms, other<br />

times after 50% or 70% of the bloom has<br />

appeared.<br />

01 Company founder<br />

Emil Richterich<br />

02 Emil Richterich’s<br />

grandson Felix is<br />

Ricola’s chairman<br />

03 Adrian Kohler,<br />

CEO Ricola<br />

Ricola has about 400 employees, most of<br />

whom work in the town of Laufen<br />

The company has five herb gardens<br />

in Switzerland that serve as a place for<br />

visitors to become familiar with herbs. The<br />

garden closest to Ricola headquarters is<br />

at the foot of the Jura mountains. In the<br />

front, near the entrance, there is a bed<br />

displaying the 13 herbs that go into the<br />

original candy. Further back there are<br />

more beds with herbs and fruit such as<br />

lemon balm, echinacea, cranberries and<br />

currants. Each garden has all the herbs<br />

and fruits that go into Ricola’s various<br />

candies, so that visitors can see the whole<br />

plant and get a feel for where various<br />

tastes really come from.<br />

Outlook 02/2008<br />

47

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!