Long before the United States put its first space vehicle into orbit, foreign cartoonists, from Argentina to the Transvaal, had assumed that the American satellite would be built along the familiar lines of a Coca-Cola bottle. In their eyes, as in the eyes of many people abroad, Coca-Cola is a fluid that, like gasoline, is indispensable to, and symbolic of, the American way of life. On its own, without gas, Coke is so widely regarded as a symbol of America that an Italian cartoonist once portrayed Uncle Sam himself as a top-hatted, star-spangled bottle of it.
Among the other exponents of the theory that Coca-Cola is uniquely representative of the United States are the officials of the Coca-Cola Company, one of whom is known to have described the drink, which is ninety-nine per cent sugar and water, as “the most American thing in America.”
Around the globe, Coca-Cola is consumed, as its advertisements have lately been trumpeting, about sixty million times a day. Coca-Cola has been gulped by Florence Chadwick while she was swimming the Strait of Gibraltar, and by Sir Edmund Hillary while he was mushing toward the South Pole.
Even the Coca-Cola Company regards as out of the ordinary-though it is rather fond of the old girl-a wrinkled Indian woman in a remote Mexican province who told an inquiring explorer in 1954 that she had never heard of the United States but had heard of Coke. There can be exceedingly few North Americans who are unacquainted with Coca-Cola, which a Swedish sociologist has said bears the same nourishing relationship to the body of Homo americanus that television does to his soul.
In contrast to that innocent rookie, some of his fellow-citizens drink Coca-Cola at a staggering clip. One of the most faithful customers on record is an Alabama woman who on her ninety-seventh birthday attributed her durability to her habit of consuming a Coca-Cola at exactly ten o’clock every morning since the stuff first came on the market, in 1886. Possibly the outstanding Coke drinker of all time is a used-car salesman in Memphis who revealed in 1954, when he was sixty-five, that for fifty years he had been averaging twenty-five bottles daily, and that on some days he had hit fifty.
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Downey, whose own thirst for Coca-Cola has been acclaimed in a company house organ as unquenchable, is not only a caroller for Coke but one of nearly eleven hundred domestic bottlers of the drink. The Coca-Cola Company itself owns only forty-two of the bottling plants, and the income from them is no more than a tithe of its gross sales, which in 1957 came to nearly three hundred million dollars. Peddling syrup is the company’s driving, dedicated raison d’être, regardless of who controls Lebanon, the Transvaal, or, for that matter, the United States.
Two-thirds of this ocean of Coke is swallowed in the United States. Since the war, however, Coca-Cola has become increasingly conspicuous in the whole free world’s way of life. The drink is now bottled in a hundred and seven foreign regions, including the Isle of Man and Mozambique, and in many areas abroad it enjoys a social standing markedly higher than any it has ever attained at home, as if it were a Foreign Service career man who, after hanging around Washington obscurely for years, is suddenly appointed ambassador to a small nation and gets invited to all its best parties.
Coca-Cola is served at wedding receptions in Saudi Arabia, at garden parties in India and Italy, and, cheek by jowl with champagne, at formal dinners in Venezuela. The four daughters of the Queen of the Netherlands have been seen at royal picnics with four bottles of Coke, and the wife of the French Ambassador to Great Britain had special pockets fitted into the stole she wore to Queen Elizabeth’s coronation, and tucked a bottle of Coke in each, to see her through the ceremony. When Farouk reigned in Egypt, all the Cairo night clubs reserved a table for him every evening, just in case he should turn up. Alongside every regal oasis was a silver ice bucket cradling a supply of Coca-Cola.
In South Africa and in Mexico, a young man may drink anything that comes to hand during the week, but when he takes his best girl out on a Saturday night, he treats her to a Coca-Cola. In the company’s advertisements, which try manfully to equate the beverage with “the heart-thumping happiness of boy getting acquainted with girl,” it is made explicit that boy who first gets Coke to girl gets girl, too.
No more fervent tributes have ever been paid to Coca-Cola than those that came from Allied service men who either got the opportunity to drink it or missed it unbearably during the Second World War. The Coca-Cola Company itself boasted in wartime advertisements that “next to wives, sweethearts, and letters from home, among the things our fighting men overseas mention most [in their letters] is Coca-Cola.”
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Originally marketed as a temperance drink and intended as a patent medicine, Coca-Cola was invented in the late 19th century by John Stith Pemberton in Atlanta. In 1888, Pemberton sold the ownership rights to Asa Griggs Candler, a businessman, whose marketing tactics led Coca-Cola to its dominance of the global soft-drink market throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. The name refers to two of its original ingredients: coca leaves and kola nuts (a source of caffeine).
The formula of Coca-Cola remains a trade secret; however, a variety of reported recipes and experimental recreations have been published. The Coca-Cola Company produces concentrate, which is then sold to licensed Coca-Cola bottlers throughout the world. The bottlers, who hold exclusive territory contracts with the company, produce the finished product in cans and bottles from the concentrate, in combination with filtered water and sweeteners. The bottlers then sell, distribute, and merchandise Coca-Cola to retail stores, restaurants, and vending machines throughout the world.
Coca-Cola has been sold outside the United States as early as the turn of the 20th century, as the drink was first sold in Britain on 31 August 1900 and the Cuba Libre (a mix between Coca-Cola and rum) was created in Havana shortly after the Spanish-American War of 1898. However, the international reach of the product became mostly limited to North and Central America, the Caribbean, Western Europe and parts of Asia until the 1940s, when the brand was introduced throughout South America and then Europe after the end of World War II (Fanta was initially conceived by the German Coca-Cola subsidiary as an emergency replacement as the wartime trade embargo prevented the import of syrup).
The acceptability of Coca-Cola in any region is apt to depend on the region’s political orientation toward the United States. For the last ten years or so, our foreign critics have taken to identifying the policies of our State Department with those of the Coca-Cola Company, and have conjured up a new type of imperialism, which they call Coca-Colonization, or Coca-Colonialism. Hitler drank Coke, but while Germany was at war with the United States, the official Nazi line was that the beverage was a menace to European civilization.
In the Lebanese revolt last spring, two of the first buildings in Beirut to be assaulted by the rebels were the library of the United States Information Agency and the Coca-Cola bottling plant. While the Coca-Cola Company naturally deplores violence, and especially violence that impairs anybody’s chance of buying a Coke, its executives do not object to the tendency to confuse their product with the nation that spawned it. “Apparently some of our friends overseas have difficulty distinguishing between the United States and Coca-Cola,” a vice-president of the company recently observed in a memo to an associate, considerately listing fatherland ahead of firm. “Perhaps we should not complain too much about this.”
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Coca-Cola has been a point of legal discussion in the Middle East. In the early 20th century, a fatwa was created in Egypt to discuss the question...
Coca-Cola, Egypt, and the Arab Boycott
The acceptability of Coca-Cola in any region is apt to depend on the region’s political orientation toward the United States. A key factor in Coca-Cola's history in the Middle East is its relationship with the Arab boycott of Israel. The Arab League, formed in 1945, implemented a boycott against companies that supported Israel. This boycott created significant challenges for Coca-Cola, which sought to expand its presence in Arab countries while also facing pressure to operate in Israel.
In 1966, Coca-Cola faced accusations of honoring the Arab boycott of Israel, leading to significant backlash in the United States. Jewish organizations and media outlets criticized the company for allegedly complying with the boycott by not establishing a bottling plant in Israel. This sparked protests and even temporary boycotts of Coca-Cola products in some areas.
Coca-Cola initially remained silent on the issue, but under pressure, the company decided to defy the Arab boycott and establish a plant in Israel. This decision was met with strong reactions from Arab countries, with some threatening to blacklist Coca-Cola. Despite these threats, Coca-Cola proceeded with its plans in Israel, demonstrating its commitment to operating in the country.
Coca-Cola's decision to open a plant in Israel led to its blacklisting by the Arab Boycott Office in November 1966. This meant that Coca-Cola and its products were prohibited in Arab countries, impacting the company's business in the region.
Despite the boycott, Coca-Cola continued to seek opportunities in Arab countries, including Egypt. In the mid-1960s, Coca-Cola was in negotiations to establish a bottling plant in Egypt. However, these plans were complicated by the Arab boycott and political tensions between the United States and Egypt under President Gamal Abdel Nasser.
Atlantic Industries' Role
Atlantic Industries played a significant role in Coca-Cola's efforts to navigate the complexities of operating in the Middle East. The company worked closely with Coca-Cola to explore opportunities in Egypt and other Arab countries while also managing the challenges posed by the Arab boycott.
Despite these challenges, Atlantic Industries and Coca-Cola persisted in their efforts to establish a presence in Egypt. Negotiations continued, and in the late 1960s, Coca-Cola finally succeeded in opening a bottling plant in Egypt. This marked a significant milestone for the company, as it gained access to one of the largest markets in the Arab world.
Key Moments in Coca-Cola's History
Several key moments have shaped Coca-Cola's global presence:
- 1886: Coca-Cola is invented by John Pemberton in Atlanta.
- 1894: The first bottling of Coca-Cola occurs in Vicksburg, Mississippi.
- Early 20th Century: Coca-Cola expands internationally, including its introduction in Britain in 1900.
- Mid-20th Century: Coca-Cola becomes a symbol of American culture and expands globally after World War II.
- 1966: Coca-Cola faces controversy over the Arab boycott of Israel but decides to open a plant in Israel.
Coca-Cola: Ingredients and Controversies
When launched, Coca-Cola's two key ingredients were cocaine and caffeine. Pemberton called for five ounces of coca leaf per gallon of syrup (approximately 37 g/L), a significant dose; in 1891, Candler claimed his formula (altered extensively from Pemberton's original) contained only a tenth of this amount. Coca-Cola once contained an estimated nine milligrams of cocaine per glass. After 1904, instead of using fresh leaves, Coca-Cola started using "spent" leaves - the leftovers of the cocaine-extraction process with trace levels of cocaine. Since then (by 1929[84]), Coca-Cola has used a cocaine-free coca leaf extract.
The kola nut acts as a flavoring and the original source of caffeine in Coca-Cola. In 1911, the US government sued in United States v. Forty Barrels and Twenty Kegs of Coca-Cola, hoping to force the Coca-Cola Company to remove caffeine from its formula. The court found that the syrup, when diluted as directed, would result in a beverage containing 1.21 grains (or 78.4 mg) of caffeine per 8 US fluid ounces (240 ml) serving.
The exact formula for Coca-Cola's natural flavorings is a trade secret. (All of its other ingredients are listed on the side of the bottle or can, and are not secret.) The original copy of the formula was held in Truist Financial's main vault in Atlanta for 86 years. Its predecessor, the Trust Company, was the underwriter for the Coca-Cola Company's initial public offering in 1919.
Several key moments have shaped Coca-Cola's global presence:
Coca-Cola: Production and Distribution
The production and distribution of Coca-Cola follows a franchising model. The Coca-Cola Company only produces a syrup concentrate, which it sells to bottlers throughout the world, who hold Coca-Cola franchises for one or more geographical areas.
The New Coke Controversy
On April 23, 1985, Coca-Cola, amid much publicity, changed the formula of the drink with "New Coke". Follow-up taste tests revealed most consumers preferred the taste of New Coke to both old Coke and Pepsi[51] but Coca-Cola management was unprepared for the public's nostalgia for the old drink, leading to a backlash. The company gave in to protests and returned to the old formula under the name Coca-Cola Classic, on July 10, 1985.
Conclusion
Coca-Cola's journey from a temperance drink to a global icon is marked by strategic marketing, cultural integration, and political navigation. Its presence in Egypt, intertwined with the Arab boycott and the involvement of Atlantic Industries, illustrates the complexities of international business and cultural exchange. Despite controversies and challenges, Coca-Cola has maintained its status as one of the world's most recognized and consumed beverages.
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