Industry sends aid to Haiti

Drinks companies have been swift to provide help for survivors of last week’s massive earthquake in Haiti which has left 1.5 million people homeless in the poorest country in the western hemisphere.

Diageo, the world’s largest liquor company, chartered a Boeing 727 aircraft to airlift 45,000 pounds of food and emergency supplies to Haiti from Miami last Friday.

The company, which holds a minority stake in Brasserie Nationale d’Haiti S.A, a brewery in Port Au Prince, is also working with the Washington Redskins NFL team to send a second wave of supplies, which include emergency health kits.

"Diageo, through its Spirit of the Americas Humanitarian Aid Program, has been there for communities where we do business," said Szoka McDonald, senior director of external relations at Diageo North America’s Norwalk headquarters.

Anhueser-Busch InBev, North America has also announced it is tapping into its production capacity to provide beer cans filled with drinking water, among other supplies.

The day after the earthquake, the company’s AmBev business in Latin America shipped nearly 350,000 cans of drinking water from its brewery in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, the nation that shares the island of Hispanola with Haiti.

The brewery, only 160 miles from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, was one of the first to get aid to the victims, said a statement from the company.

Alan Lodge, 20.01.2010