profession: pilot career: actor - Jet Aviation
profession: pilot career: actor - Jet Aviation
profession: pilot career: actor - Jet Aviation
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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