HISTORY: THE COCA-COLA STORY

Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a carbonated soft drink with a cola flavor manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. In 2013, Coke products were sold in over 200 countries worldwide, with consumers drinking more than 1.8 billion company beverage servings each day. Coca-Cola ranked No. 87 in the 2018 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue. Based on Interbrand's "best global brand" study of 2020, Coca-Cola was the world's sixth most valuable brand.

The product that has given the world its best-known taste was born in Atlanta, Georgia, on May 8, 1886. Dr. John Stith Pemberton, a local pharmacist, produced the syrup for Coca‑Cola, and carried a jug of the new product down the street to Jacobs' Pharmacy, where it was sampled, pronounced "excellent" and placed on sale for five cents a glass as a soda fountain drink. Carbonated water was teamed with the new syrup to produce a drink that was at once "Delicious and refreshing, a theme that continues to echo today wherever Coca‑Cola is enjoyed.

When launched, Coca-Cola's two key ingredients were cocaine and caffeine. The cocaine was derived from the coca leaf and the caffeine from kola nut (also spelled "cola nut" at the time), leading to the name Coca-Cola.

Kola nut now acts as a flavoring and the original source of caffeine in Coca-Cola. It contains about 2.0 to 3.5% caffeine, and has a bitter flavor.

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.

Long after the syrup had ceased to contain any significant amount of cocaine, in North Carolina "dope" remained a common colloquialism for Coca-Cola, and "dope-wagons" were trucks that transported it.

Thinking that "the two Cs would look well in advertising," Dr. Pemberton's partner and bookkeeper, Frank M. Robinson, suggested the name and penned the now famous trademark "Coca‑Cola" in his unique script.

The first newspaper ad for Coca‑Cola soon appeared in The Atlanta Journal, inviting thirsty citizens to try "the new and popular soda fountain drink." Hand-painted oilcloth signs reading "Coca‑Cola" appeared on store awnings, with the suggestion "Drink" added to inform passersby that the new beverage was for soda fountain refreshment. During the first year, sales averaged a modest nine drinks per day.

Dr. Pemberton never realized the potential of the beverage he created. He gradually sold portions of his business to various partners and, just prior to his death in 1888, sold his remaining interest in Coca‑Cola to Asa G. Candler. An Atlantan with great business acumen, Mr. Candler proceeded to buy additional rights and acquire complete control.

One of the most famous shapes in the world is the iconic contour fluted lines of the Coca‑Cola bottle. Renowned as a design classic and described by noted industrial designer, Raymond Loewy as the “perfect liquid wrapper,” the bottle has been celebrated in art, music and advertising. When Andy Warhol wanted a shape to represent mass culture, he drew the bottle and when Volkswagen wanted to celebrate the shape of the Beatle, they compared the car to the bottle.

It began with the desire to protect brand Coca‑Cola and was a cooperative project between The Coca‑Cola Company and its bottlers.

In 1899, two Chattanooga lawyers, Joseph Whitehead and Benjamin Thomas, traveled to Atlanta to negotiate the rights to bottle Coca‑Cola. The product had been an increasingly popular soda fountain drink established a mere 13 years previously. In fountain form, Coca‑Cola grew from an average of nine drinks per day sold in 1886 to being sold in every state of the US by 1900. Thomas and Whitehead wanted to capitalize on the popularity of the drink by bottling it to be consumed outside the four walls of a soda fountain.

The contract the two signed was a geographic one and The Coca‑Cola Bottling Company began franchising the rights to bottle Coca‑Cola in cities across the U.S. By 1920, over 1,200 Coca‑Cola bottling operations were established. Sales in both fountain and bottle form continued to increase and that popularity led to dozens of competitors trying to imitate the famous trademark of Coca‑Cola to deceive the public into buying their drinks.

Competitor brands like Koka-Nola, Ma Coca-Co, Toka-Cola and even Koke copied or only slightly modified the Spencerian script logo. These competitor bottles created confusion among consumers.

By 1912, The Coca‑Cola Bottling Company sent a note all of its members noting that while The Coca‑Cola Company had a distinctive logo, they did not have any way to protect their business. They proposed the members all join together and develop a “distinctive package” for their product. They worked with Harold Hirsch, the lead attorney for The Coca‑Cola Company to best determine how to get a special bottle. In 1914, Hirsch made an impassioned plea for the bottling community to unite behind a distinctive package.

“We are not building Coca‑Cola alone for today. We are building Coca‑Cola forever, and it is our hope that Coca‑Cola will remain the National drink to the end of time. The heads of your companies are doing everything in their power at considerable expense to bring about a bottle that we can adopt and call our own child, and when that bottle is adopted I ask each and every member of this convention to not consider the immediate expense that would be involved with changing your bottle, but to remember this, that in bringing about that bottle, the parent companies are bringing about an establishment of your own rights. You are coming into your own and it is a question of cooperation”.

In Terre Haute, Indiana, the Root Glass Company received the brief and had a meeting to begin to work on their design. When the team came across an illustration of cocoa bean that had an elongated shape and distinct ribs, they had their shape. The team developed the bottle idea and Dean carefully sketched the now recognizable shape on heavy linen paper and under Samuelsson’s direction, a few sample bottles were struck.

Now you know why the bottle happened, so how has it permeated culture over the years?

How did Coca-Cola grow as an international business?

Coca‑Cola began building a global network in the 1920s. The global growth expanded during World War II when Coca‑Cola President Robert Woodruff believed that every American service man and woman should have a Coke at their disposal, no matter where they were or the cost to the company. Woodruff’s vision during this critical period in American history helped establish Coke as a global corporation by introducing the product to different markets.

Now operating in more than 200 countries and producing over 200 brands, the system has successfully applied a simple formula on a global scale: Refresh the World. Make a Difference.

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. A typical 12-US-fluid-ounce (350 ml) can contains 38 grams (1.3 oz) of sugar (usually in the form of high-fructose corn syrup in North America). The bottlers then sell, distribute, and merchandise Coca-Cola to retail stores, restaurants, and vending machines throughout the world. The Coca-Cola Company also sells concentrate for soda fountains of major restaurants and foodservice distributors.

The Coca-Cola Company has on occasion introduced other cola drinks under the Coke name. The most common of these is Diet Coke, along with others including Caffeine-Free Coca-Cola, Diet Coke Caffeine-Free, Coca-Cola Zero Sugar, Coca-Cola Cherry, Coca-Cola Vanilla, and special versions with lemon, lime, and coffee. Coca-Cola was called Coca-Cola Classic from July 1985 to 2009, to distinguish it from "New Coke".