Chaleo Yoovidhya

Chaleo Yoovidhya (Thai: เฉลียว อยู่วิทยา, rtgs: Chaliao Yuwitthaya, Thai pronunciation: [ʨʰàlǐːaw jùːwíttʰájaː]; born 17 August 1923; died on 17 March 2012) was a Thai businessman and investor. He was the originator of Krating Daeng (กระทิงแดง) and was co-creator of the Red Bull brands of energy drinks. At the time of his death in 2012 at the age of 88, he was listed as the third-richest person in Thailand, with an estimated net worth of US$5 billion.

Background

Various news sources suggest Chaleo was born in Central Thailand at some point between 1922 and 1932, to a poor Thai-Chinese family that raised ducks and traded fruit in Phichit. His father was an immigrant from Hainan.

With little formal education, he worked for his parents, then moved to Bangkok. He became an antibiotics salesman, before quitting to set up his own small pharmaceutical company, TC Pharmaceuticals, in the early 1960s. Later, after a claimed stroke of "divine inspiration", he developed an energy-boosting beverage that was first introduced in 1976. The logo depicts two large, red bulls charging each other, which are not cattle, but wild gaur, a bovine species native to Southeast Asia called krathing (กระทิง) in Thai.

Red Bull

Red Bull is an energy drink sold by Austrian company Red Bull GmbH, created in 1987. In terms of market share, Red Bull is the highest-selling energy drink in the world, with 5.387 billion cans sold in 2013.

Austrian entrepreneur Dietrich Mateschitz was inspired by an existing energy drink named Krating Daeng, which was first invented and sold in Thailand. He took this idea, modified the ingredients to suit the tastes of Westerners, and, in partnership with Chaleo Yoovidhya, founded Red Bull GmbH in 1987 in Chakkapong, Thailand. In Thai, daeng means red, and krating is the large bovine called "gaur". Red Bull is sold in a tall and slim blue-silver can, while Krating Daeng is in a gold shorter can. The two are different products, produced separately.

The Red Bull company slogan is "Red Bull gives you wings", and the product is marketed through advertising, events (Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series, Red Bull Air Race, Red Bull Crashed Ice), sports team ownerships (RB Leipzig, FC Red Bull Salzburg, Red Bull Brasil, New York Red Bulls, Red Bull Racing, Scuderia Toro Rosso), celebrity endorsements, and music, through its record label Red Bull Records.

Bull

A bull is an intact (i.e., not castrated) adult male of the species Bos taurus (cattle). More muscular and aggressive than the female of the species, the cow, the bull has long been an important symbol in many cultures, and plays a significant role in both beef and dairy farming, and in a variety of other cultural activities.

Nomenclature

The female counterpart to a bull is a cow, while a male of the species which has been castrated is a steer, ox or bullock, although in North America this last term refers to a young bull, and in Australia to a draught animal. Usage of these terms varies considerably with area and dialect. Colloquially, people unfamiliar with cattle may refer to both castrated and intact animals as "bulls".

A wild, young, unmarked bull is known as a micky in Australia. Improper or late castration on a bull results in it becoming a coarse steer, also known as a stag in Australia, Canada and New Zealand. In some countries an incompletely castrated male is known also as a rig or ridgling.