Named after "coca" leaves and caffeine-rich "kola" nuts, Coca-Cola has been America's best-selling soft drink for decades. Every day, more than 1.9 billion servings of the roughly $300B Coca-Cola Company's drinks are sold worldwide.
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The "company" manages the brand itself, as well as its secret formula and syrup production. The capital-intensive "system" of independent bottlers, on the other hand, handles manufacturing and distribution.
Separately, Diet Coke made up about 7.8% of US market share that year. Pepsi was responsible for 8.3% of market share, as was Dr. Pepper.
When Civil War veteran John Pemberton concocted the drink, he was suffering from both a saber wound and a morphine addiction. He formulated Pemberton's French Wine Coca by copying the popular cocaine-infused Vin Mariani wine that Popes and Presidents drank at the time. This podcast episode details Coca-Cola's origin story, as well as the financial and business strategies it used to get to where it is today.
A "patent medicine" is a proprietary medicine that is ostensibly created and marketed under a patent, and, crucially, is available without prescription.
That equates to roughly 9 drinks per day. But once he brought it to pharmacies that hooked the syrup up to their soda fountains, sales increased significantly, with roughly 2,000 gallons being sold two years later. This video about Coca-Cola's early history is narrated by actress Jenny Slate for a Comedy Central series called "Drunk History," so not all of it is intended to be entirely factually accurate.
They are supposedly two Coca-Cola executives. Over the years, a number of handwritten formulas have surfaced to the public, but Coca-Cola has ruled all of them as inauthentic.
Given that the Coca-Cola formula is one of the company's most closely-guarded secrets, the radio show's team was surprised to come across a 1979 newspaper article with what looked like the original recipe for Coke.
Coca-Cola contained small amounts of cocaine until the early 1900s—but that's not the only time Coca-Cola has altered its recipe over the years. For instance, Coca-Cola transitioned from cane sugar to high-fructose corn syrup in the 1980s.
Launched in 1963, Tab was successful in part because of its diet-conscious branding, with the name "tab" referring to the idea of "keeping a tab on your weight." Diet Coke made its debut in 1982.
The parent company owns lots of beverage brands, from sodas to water, including Dasani, Minute Maid, Topo-Chico, and more. You can see all of the roughly 200 brands it owns on its website.
The United States is home to more than 33 million businesses, the vast majority of which are small businesses, with millions being created (and others closing shop) every year. These businesses often rely on loans, provide the goods and services that keep the economy flowing, and sometimes even grow large enough to enter public markets or provide private investment opportunities. Explore key topics central to business and finance, from the role of the Federal Reserve to how initial public offerings work, how millions of American students finance higher education, and more.