A. Oostra
to retire
No consequences after drinking
three litres of Buckler
PAGE 2 HEINEKEN INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE NR. 27
'Exploring new markets
and building up brands'
Cautious
Talents
Institute studies alcohol effect of Buckler:
The person who quaffs big quantities of Buckler doesn't get
drunk and is still capable of driving a car. That's the conclusion
of the Dutch Road Safety Scientific Research Institute
(SWOV) which was commissioned by Heineken to investigate
the extent to which the drinking of Buckler has an effect on the
blood alcohol level. The blood alcohol level (measured as a
permillage, or in parts per thousand) is one of the yardsticks
used to determine whether a person is fit to drive.
Zero
Mr A. Oostra will be retir
ing on 31st December 1990 as
a member of the Board of Di
rectors of Heineken N.V. The
Supervisory Board has accept
ed Mr Oostra's resignation
and respects his underlying
motives.
Mr Oostra started his career
with Heineken as general ma
nager of Dreher in Italy. In
1984 he was appointed ma
naging director of Heineken
Nederland B.V. At the Gener
al Meeting of Shareholders
two years ago Mr Oostra was
appointed a member of the
Board.
In a press release the Super
visory Board expressed its ap
preciation for the many contri
butions he has made to the de
velopment of the business.
continued from page 1
nelled through to other depart
ments within the business. If you
don't do that, you cannot truly de
scribe yourself as an international
company. Exchanging and bringing
together that expertise, that's the
crux. If we keep on doing that,
there will be more than ample
room for growth.'
That growth might also take
place in South America. Over the
past decades Heineken was not
strongly represented in that conti
nent. Mr Van Schaik explains why:
'Import duties were always ex
tremely high. Besides, we had no
real access to the local contacts. We
have always taken the attitude, and
still do, that we want to sell our
own brands in a market. All pe
ripheral activities are totally aimed
at that ultimate goal. Over the past
few years we have had good con
tacts in Argentina and Brazil. In
Rio de Janeiro Heineken beer was
introduced recently. But let me just
add one thing: good businesses are
built up slowly. You can only in
vest effectively in the future by get
ting down to work cautiously and
carefully, without rushing. In South
America it will still take years be
fore we really have sufficient in-
house expertise and know-how to
properly handle the specific aspects
of doing business in those coun
tries.'
During the interview the talk
keeps returning to the subject of the
'brand'. 'There are only a few brew
eries in the world which have a
truly global brand. Our company
has one of them: Heineken, our
flagship! The importance of inter
national brands is growing all the
time and I therefore see it as my
personal objective to make the
organisation - and by that I mean
the deployment of both the person
nel and the production facilities -
even more flexible and more effi
cient so that we can then devote
even more attention to our corpo
rate brands. We have to use all the
talents in the organisation - and we
do have a great deal of talent in the
business - to get an accurate feeling
for the trends in the beer market.
The entire organisation must be to
tally attuned to the market.'
Lastly, the talk turns to the
McKinsey survey. 'Unlike what
many people think, this survey is
not aimed at improving what went
wrong in the past. We are now
studying whether and in what way
the company needs to be adapted
in line with the different method of
working required in the 1990s.
Such a survey mustn't be seen as a
threat, but rather as a fresh wind of
change. And I'm also expecting
those new, fresh ideas to emerge
from the young people working
within Heineken.'
The research carried out by
SWOV confirms the findings of a
similar study conducted previously
in West Germany. In that study'it
was also found that consuming
low-alcohol beer (with 0.5% by vol
ume) after drinking a couple of
glasses of beer with alcohol does
not cause any increase in the blood
alcohol level.
During the test, blood samples
were taken twelve times from the
test subjects so as to measure the
blood alcohol level as accurately as
possible. The results showed that
after drinking three litres of Buck
ler during a two-hour period the
blood alcohol reading was zero!
After that, the SWOV boffins
studied the consequences 'of the
Heineken asked the Institute to
conduct the research so as to
provide scientific confirmation
that drinking Buckler in big quan
tities causes no problems. This was
because some consumers had
claimed that drinking big quan
tities of Buckler might have an in
fluence on, say, a person's ability to
drive.
The Institute set up an experi
ment in which a group of males
aged from 18 to 25 were given three
litres of Buckler to drink over a
period of two hours. All the test
subjects had been subjected to a
medical check-up beforehand. Be
fore the start of the experiment all
the test people were served the
same meal and none of them had
taken any alcoholic drink on the
day before the experiment.
consumption of Buckler with an al
cohol percentage of 0.9%, as it is
sold in France. They found that in
only a few cases the blood alcohol
level reached a level of at most 0.09
permille. That is well below the
driving limit of 0.5 permille laid
down by the Dutch Government
(and also by other West European
countries).
