THINGS GO BETTER WITH COCA COLA

Coca-Cola is enjoyed all over the world. 1,6 billion gallons are sold every
year, in over one hundred and sixty countries. The drink was invented by John
Pemberton in Atlanta, on May 8 1886, but it was given the name Coca-Cola by
his partner, frank Robinson. In the first year, only nine drinks a day were sold.

The business was bought by a man called Asa Candler in 1888, and the
first factory was opened in Dallas, Texas, in 1895. Coca-Cola is still made
there. Billions of bottles and cans have been produced since 1895. Advertising
was an important factor in John Pemberton and Asa Candler's success and by
the turn of the century, the drink was sold across the United States and
Canada. Around the same time, the company began selling syrup to
independent bottling companies licensed to sell the drink. Even today, the US
soft drink industry is organized on this principle. On April 23, 1985, the trade
secret "New Coke" formula was released. Today, products of the Coca Cola
Company are consumed at the rate of more than one billion drinks per day.

Pemberton called for five ounces of coca leaf per gallon of syrup, a
significant dose; in 1891, Candler claimed his formula (altered extensively
from Pemberton's original) contained only a tenth of this amount. Coca-Cola
did once contain an estimated nine milligrams of cocaine per glass, but in
1903 it was removed. Coca-Cola still contains coca flavoring.

After 1904, instead of using fresh leaves, Coca-Cola started using "spent"
leavesthe leftovers of the cocaine-extraction process with cocaine trace
levels left over at a molecular level. To this day, Coca-Cola uses as an
ingredient a cocaine-free coca leaf extract prepared at a Stepan Company

In the United States, Stepan Company is the only manufacturing plant

authorized by the Federal Government to import and process the coca plant,
which it obtains mainly from Peru and, to a lesser extent, Bolivia. Besides
producing the coca flavoring agent for Coca-Cola, Stepan Company extracts
cocaine from the coca leaves, which it sells to Mallinckrodt, a St. Louis,
Missouri pharmaceutical manufacturer that is the only company in the United
States licensed to purify cocaine for medicinal use. Stepan Company buys
about 100 metric tons of dried Peruvian coca leaves each year, according to
Marco Castillo, spokesman for Peru's state-owned National Coca Co.

Diet Coke has been made since 1982, and over the years many clever
advertisements have been used to sell the product.
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