(04) OUR BUSINESS

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Serjad worked as a gardener until he was 13, when he got a job as a baker's apprentice at the MI Bakery on Charlotte Street in Port of Spain. Soon he became involved in selling bread and cakes and would deliver his goods to customers on a bicycle. To develop a large clientele, Serjad gave an extra loaf to anyone who had purchased more than 12 loaves, paying for this extra loaf out of his own pocket. This allowed him to build up a substantial clientele in a short space of time and he soon became the bakery's top salesman.

In the 1930's, whilst still working at the bakery, he learn that one Mrs Bajnath had a small soft drink plant for sale in St James. Having accumulated $350, Serjad borrowed $250 from his friend Nagib Elias, and bought Mrs Bajnath's soft drink plant. It was around this time that he got married to Khairoon Khan who worked with him in running the plant. Everything was done manually: She washed the bottles, boiled the syrup and hand filled the bottles, also adding the carbonated water and capping the bottles. The plant produced one bottle of soft drink per minute. Using old beer bottles, two flavours of soft drink were produced: Cola Champagne and Banana. Serjad would make one or two cases of soft drinks per day after he finished work at the bakery, which he would take with him on his rounds the next day. As he knew most of his customers well, he was able to convince them to buy his soft drinks.

East Indian and non-whites had a lot of difficulty breaking into the soft drink business in a colonial society. When he first acquired the plant he wrote several times to various soft drink producers in England inquiring on how he could make improvements. He got no replies. It was evident by his name that he was not an Englishman but an East Indian, so Serjad recognizing this, changed his name to Joseph Charles and quickly got a reply from England about his products.

Joseph Charles soon started to have a problem with the availability of bottles. His clientele was growing and he could not get enough bottles to satisfy the demand. Moreover, he did not have sufficient capital to buy new bottles. He read in a magazine that a soft drink factory in Montreal Canada was closing down and its assets were up for sale. He realized that this would be the source of empty soft drink bottles which he promptly bought and shipped to Trinidad. The bottles, however, had a brand name "SOLO" and a logo - a pilot drinking from a bottle of soft drink presumably after a solo flight - stamped on them.

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In 1973, the Government purchased 50 per cent of the inland marketing assets of ESSO Standard Oil, vesting it in NP. In 1976, NP became the sole distributor of petroleum fuels in T&T, having acquired the marketing assets of Trinidad and Tobago Oil Company (formerly Shell Trinidad Ltd) and the following year the local marketing assets of Texaco Trinidad Ltd.

When NP acquired the assets of Shell Trinidad Ltd, it inherited its Lubricant Blending Plant at Sea Lots, on the outskirts of Port-of-Spain. Under license, it continued to produce a range of lubricants, blended according to the Shell formulations, until the National Petroleum Brand of lubricants was launched in 1981.

Since then NP continues to improve its product rating by keeping abreast with significant technological advancement in the lubricants industry. Because of NP rigorous pursuit of quality standards the company has achieve the service classification of American Petroleum Institute (API) certification. The Trinidad and Tobago and Caribbean markets are among the most advanced regions of the world. NP reports to the Minister of Energy and Energy Affairs on matters relating to the industry, and to the Minister of Finance on Corporation sales.

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In addition to their main brands, the company also offer the option of private label matches. In 2004 the match factory upgraded its operations with a state of the art match production line from Sweden. The capacity of this line coupled with high quality raw materials at affordable prices, allows the company to offer a competitively priced range of safety matches to local and export markets. The company products are distributed throughout the region to Antigua, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Montserrat, St. Kitts, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Suriname, and of course to the home country Trinidad and Tobago.

The company most recent entry has been into the Puerto Rican market. There they offer two sizes – the regular size and household size. The regular box contains approximately 40 matchsticks and the household approximately 280.

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These Brands are market leaders as well as household names throughout the Caribbean. The company pioneered the development and export of authentic West Indian specialty foods and its range of jams, pepper sauces, jellies, tropical sauces, chutneys, Salsa, Barbecue Sauces, and condiments have been the favorites of West Indian communities worldwide. Its Scorpion Hot Sauce is made with the world s hottest Trinidad Moruga hot peppers. These products are made to traditional recipes that are developed in house using only the finest raw materials indigenous to the Caribbean. The company is heavily involved in exporting its products to all the Caricom states, Central America, North America and Europe. The marketing of its products outside of the Caricom area is done through Matouk International USA Inc. with office located in Florida, USA

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