The Coca-Cola Company is one of the largest manufacturers, distributors and marketers of nonalcoholic beverage concentrates and syrups in the world.
Coca-Cola's headquarters are in Atlanta, Georgia, in the United States of America.
It is best known for its flagship product, Coca-Cola, and is one of the largest corporations in the United States. The company's stock is listed on the NYSE and is part of DJIA and S&P 500.
Coca-Cola was invented by pharmacist John Stith Pemberton in 1884. According to the 2005 Annual Report, the company sells beverage products in more than 200 countries and territories.
In general the Coca-Cola Company (TCCC) only produces syrup concentrate which is then sold to various bottlers throughout the world who hold a Coca-Cola franchise.
The Coca-Cola Company offers nearly 400 brands in over 200 countries or territories, besides its namesake Coca-Cola beverage.
History
Pharmacist John Stith Pemberton invented a cocawine called Pemberton's French Wine Coca in 1884. He was inspired by the formidable success of French Angelo Mariani's cocaine, Vin Mariani. The following year, when Atlanta and Fulton County passed Prohibition legislation, Pemberton began to develop a non-alcoholic version of the French Wine Coca, adding fruit flavors, sugar & citric acid while maintaining the cocaine content which was believed to possess a number of miraculous health benefits. The name Coca-Cola was created by a partner, Frank Mason Robinson, because it included the stimulant coca leaves from South America and was flavored using kola nuts, a source of caffeine. Pemberton ran the first advertisement for the beverage on May 29 that year in the Atlanta Journal touting his fountain drink as a patent medicine with the ability to cure headaches and relieve fatigue. In 1887, while suffering from an ongoing addiction to morphine, Pemberton sold a stake in his company to Asa Griggs Candler, who incorporated it as the Coca Cola Corporation in 1888.[1] In the same year, Pemberton sold the rights a second time to three more businessmen: J.C. Mayfield, A.O. Murphey, and E.H.
Bloodworth. Meanwhile, Pemberton's alcoholic son Charley Pemberton began selling his own version of the product. Three versions of Coca-Cola — sold by three separate businesses — were on the market.[2] In 1899, Candler sold the exclusive rights, for $1 (USD) to bottle Coca-Cola in most of the United States to three entrepreneurs from Chattanooga, TN, Benjamin F. Thomas, Joseph B. Whitehead, and John T. Lupton, who subsequently founded the Coca-Cola Bottling Company.[3] With the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906 cocaine was reduced, then eliminated in the product line. In 1919, Candler sold his company to Atlanta banker Ernest Woodruff.
When the United States entered World War II, The Coca-Cola Company began providing free drinks for soldiers of the United States Army. The United States Army permitted Coca-Cola employees to enter the front lines as "Technical Officers" where they operated Coke's system of providing refreshments for soldiers. Coca-Cola set up bottling plants in several locations overseas to assure the drink's availability to soldiers, setting the stage for the company's post-war overseas expansion. The popularity of the drink exploded as American soldiers returned home from the war with a taste for the drink.[citation needed]
Before the United States entered World War II, the difficulty of shipping Coca-Cola concentrate to Germany and its occupied states led to the creation of a new drink by a Coca-Cola employee, Fanta.
In the 1930s, Robert W. Woodruff became president of the Coca-Cola Company, presiding over the drink and its destiny until his death in 1985.
In 1982, Coca-Cola purchased Columbia Pictures and Columbia Pictures Television. It owned the 2 companies until 1989, when Sony Corporation purchased them from the company.
Revenue
According to the 2005 Annual Report,[4] the company sells beverage products in more than 200 countries or territories. The report further states that of the more than 50 billion beverage servings of all types consumed worldwide every day, beverages bearing the trademarks owned by or licensed to Coca-Cola account for approximately 1.3 billion. Of these, beverages bearing the trademark "Coca-Cola" or "Coke" accounted for approximately 55% of the Company's total gallon sales.
Also according to the 2005 Annual Report, Coca-Cola had gallon sales distributed as follows:
27% in the United States
27% in Mexico, Brazil, Japan and China
46% in spread throughout the world
Bottlers
In general, The Coca-Cola Company (TCCC) and/or subsidiaries only produces (or produce) syrup concentrate which is then sold to various bottlers throughout the world who hold a Coca-Cola franchise. Coca-Cola bottlers, who hold territorially exclusive contracts with the company, produce finished product in cans and bottles from the concentrate in combination with filtered water and sweeteners. The bottlers then sell, distribute and merchandise the resulting Coca-Cola product to retail stores, vending machines, restaurants and food service distributors.
One notable exception to this general relationship between TCCC and bottlers is fountain syrups in the United States, where TCCC bypasses bottlers and is responsible for the manufacture and sale of fountain syrups directly to authorized fountain wholesalers and some fountain retailers.
In 2005, Coca-Cola had equity positions in 51 unconsolidated bottling, canning and distribution operations which produced approximately 58% of volume. Significant investees include:
36% of Coca-Cola Enterprises which produces (by population) for 78% of USA, 98% of Canada and 100% of Great Britain (but not Northern Ireland), continental France and the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium and Monaco.
40% of Coca-Cola FEMSA, S.A. de C.V. which produces (by population) for 48% of Mexico, 16% of Brazil, 98% of Colombia, 47% of Guatemala, 100% of Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Panama and Venezuela, and 30% of Argentina
24% of Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling Company S.A. which produces (by population) for 67% of Italy and 100% of Armenia, Austria, Belarus, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Nigeria, Northern Ireland, Poland, Rep. of Ireland, Romania, Russia, Serbia and Montenegro, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland and Ukraine.
34% of Coca-Cola Amatil which produces (by population) for 98% of Indonesia and 100% of Australia, Indonesia, New Zealand, South Korea, Fiji and Papua New Guinea.
27% of Coca-Cola Bottling Co. which is the second largest Coca-Cola bottler in the United States. The company was incorporated in 1980, and "its predecessors have been in the soft drink manufacturing and distribution business since 1902." [5] Products and brands
The Coca-Cola Company offers nearly 400 brands in over 200 countries, besides its namesake Coca-Cola beverage. This includes other varieties of Coca-Cola such as:
Diet Coke (introduced in 1982), which uses aspartame, a synthetic phenylalanine-based sweetener in place of sugar
Diet Coke Caffeine-Free
Cherry Coke (1985)
Diet Cherry Coke (1986)
Coke with Lemon (2001)
Diet Coke with Lemon (2001)
Vanilla Coke (2002)
Diet Vanilla Coke (2002)
Coca-Cola C2 (2004)
Coke with Lime (2004)
Diet Coke with Lime (2004)
Diet Coke Sweetened with Splenda (2005)
Coca-Cola Zero (2005)
Coca-Cola Black Cherry Vanilla (2006)
Diet Coca-Cola Black Cherry Vanilla (2006)
Coca-Cola BlāK (2006)
Diet Coke Plus (2007)
Coca-Cola Orange (2007)
Tab was Coca-Cola's first attempt to develop a diet soft drink, using saccharin as a sugar substitute. Introduced in 1963, the product is still sold today, however its sales have dwindled since the introduction of Diet Coke.
The Coca-Cola Company also produces a number of other soft drinks including Fanta (introduced circa 1942 or 1943) and Sprite. Fanta's origins date back to World War II when Max Keith, who managed Coca-Cola's operations in Germany during the war, ran out of the ingredients for Coke, which could be supplied only from the United States. Keith resorted to producing a different soft drink, Fanta, which proved to be a hit, and when Coke took over again after the war, it adopted the Fanta brand as well. The German Fanta Klare Zitrone ("Clear Lemon Fanta") variety became Sprite, another of the company's bestsellers and its response to 7 Up.
During the 1990s, the company responded to the growing consumer interest in healthy beverages by introducing several new non-carbonated beverage brands. These included Minute Maid Juices to Go, Powerade sports beverage, flavoured tea Nestea (in a joint venture with Nestle), Fruitopia fruit drink and Dasani water, among others.
In 2004, perhaps in response to the burgeoning popularity of low-carbohydrate diets such as the Atkins Diet, Coca-Cola announced its intention to develop and sell a low-carbohydrate alternative to Coke Classic, dubbed C2 Cola. C2 contains a mix of high fructose corn syrup, aspartame, sucralose, and Acesulfame potassium. C2 is designed to more closely emulate the taste of Coca-Cola Classic. Even with less than half of the food energy and carbohydrates of standard soft drinks, C2 is not a replacement for zero-calorie soft drinks such as Diet Coke. C2 went on sale in the U.S. on June 11, 2004, and in Canada in August 2004. C2's future is uncertain due to disappointing sales.
Coca-Cola is the best-selling soft drink in most countries. In the Middle East and, the only region in the world where Coca-Cola is not the number one soda drink, Coca-Cola nonetheless holds almost 25% marketshare (to Pepsi's 75%) and had double-digit growth in 2003.[5] Similarly, in Scotland, where the locally produced Irn-Bru was once more popular, 2005 figures show that both Coca-Cola and Diet Coke now outsell Irn-Bru.[6] In Peru, the native Inca Kola has been more popular than Coca-Cola, which prompted Coca-Cola to enter in negotiations with the soft drink's company and buy 50% of its stakes. In Japan, the best selling soft drink is not cola, as (canned) tea and coffee are more popular.[7] As such, the Coca-Cola Company's best selling brand there is not Coca-Cola, but Georgia.[8]
Some claim Coke is less popular in India due to suspicions regarding the health standards of the drink. However, marketshare data does not back this view. Specifically, in 2005, Coca-Cola India's market share was 60.9%.[9] However, Thums Up, a brand acquired by The Coca-Cola Company contributes a major part of this market share rather than Coke per se, which lags both Thumbs Up and Pepsi.
On July 6, 2006, a Coca-Cola employee and two other people were arrested and charged with trying to sell "highly classified" information to the soft drink maker's competitor, PepsiCo for $1.5 million. The recipe for Coca-Cola, perhaps the company's most closely guarded secret, was never in jeopardy. Instead, the information was related to a new beverage in development. Coca-Cola executives verified that the documents were valid and proprietary. At least one glass vial containing a sample of a new drink was offered for sale, court documents said. The conspiracy was revealed by PepsiCo, which notified the authorities when they were approached by the conspirators.[10]
The company announced a new "negative calorie" green tea drink, Enviga, in 2006, along with trying coffee retail concepts Far Coast and Chaqwa.
On May 25, 2007, Coca-Cola announced it would purchase Glaceau, a maker of flavored vitamin-enhanced drinks, flavored waters, and energy drinks, for $4.1 billion in cash. [11]
