Top Brandz Distributors, the sole importer of the popular energy drink Ragaman has moved to scotch rumours that the product suppresses virility in men which the company says originated with competitors who market other energy drinks locally.
Top Brandz Managing Director Wayne James told Stabroek Business in an interview earlier this week that while the claims that had been linked to Ragaman had had “very little if any impact” on the popularity of the energy drink he had decided to address the issue publicly “out of a sense of responsibility for consumer concerns and for the reputation of the brand.”
James told Stabroek Business that he had learnt of an assertion that was being made that information was available on the internet that provided evidence of the negative claims about the energy drink. “Those claims are absolutely untrue. There is no such information in the internet, James said. Checks of the internet done by this newspaper turned up no such claims about Ragaman.
Earlier this week an advertisement attributing the Regaman claims to jealous competitors and rejecting the claims appeared in sections of the print media. The advertisement noted that Ragaman is approved by the US Food and Drug Administration and makes various nutritional claims about the drink.
In recent years several brands of energy drinks have burst onto the local market prompting warnings from the Food and Drug Department (FDD) here about the consumption of the drinks. Some months ago the local FDD issued an advisory regarding the consumption of energy drinks with alcohol. James said that he had read the reports about the FDD ‘caution” in both the Stabroek News and the Stabroek Business and that he had had “no problem” with those advisories since they did not criticize the product directly. He said that he had noted the caution issued by the FDD about the taking of energy drinks along with alcohol and that his company was not an advocate of the use of Ragaman with alcohol.
When Stabroek Business spoke with FDD Director Marilyn Collins earlier this week she reiterated thatt the department had passed no judgment on Ragaman but had simply issued a general advisory to consumers on the question of the responsible consumption of energy drinks. According to Collins, however, the Department was concerned that some energy drinks were appearing on the local market without the knowledge of the Food and Drugs Department.
According to the Top Brandz Managing Director Ragaman continued to far outstrip competitor energy drinks in terms of its sales in Guyana. James said that while figures were not readily available he believed that local Ragaman sales had probably reached twice that of its nearest rival.
James told Stabroek Business that Ragaman had surpassed other energy drink imports in terms of its popularity with local consumers ever since Top Brandz secured the sole distributorship rights from Tropics, the Miami-based manufacturer. He said that what made the drink popular was the fact that it was “a fusion drink” that was being consumed as a beverage.
Top Brandz which holds the sole distributorship in Guyana for several international brands including Goya, Gerber Ocean Spray.and Huggies has secured an agreement with Tropics, the manufacturer of the product which includes a clause requiring that the company be consulted prior to any distributorship agreement in neighbouring Suriname. James said that the clause was intended to protect the local market from cross-border smuggling of the product which he said could seriously affect the local distributorship in view of the duty free import concessions available in Suriname.
Earlier this week Stabroek Business spoke with Tropics Caribbean and Central American representative Dennis Reed who said that the company was in the process of concluding an agreement with Grace Products under which Ragaman is expected to go on sale in Jamaica next month. The product, which is produced in Haiti, is also being marketed in other Caribbean territories including Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados and the Bahamas. Ragaman global sales reportedly average around 11 million cases per month.
