Coca-Cola is one of the world’s most popular drink companies. Of the world’s 7 billion people, 94% recognize its distinctive red and white logo as the symbol for sweet, cold refreshment. Although PepsiCo generated more revenue than Coca-Cola last year because of the food brands that it owns, it did not touch Coca-Cola in terms of drink revenue. Coca-Cola maintains 42.8% of the market share when it comes to soft drinks.
There are many other things you might not know about the soda company. The following 10 facts about Coca-Cola will give you a whole new way to look at your favorite drink company.
1. Coke in the final frontier. In 1985, Coke became the first soda drank in space when astronauts on board the Space Shuttle Challenger tested the “Coca-Cola Space Can.”
2. Gotta try them all? Well, it will take you 9 years. In addition to Coca-Cola, diet Coke, Sprite and the other well known soft drinks, Coca-Cola boasts over 3500 beverages under 500 brand names. So, happy drinking!
3. Coke is richer than some countries. According to the CIA World Factbook, Coca-Cola, with it’s $35 billion dollars in revenue, ranks 84th among the world’s economies. It is followed by Costa Rica.
4. Coke’s distinctive bottle shape is no accident. When the Coca-Cola company decided to start bottling their product, they realized that they needed a way to make it stand out. After all, other drinks were being bottled as well, and the bottles all looked the same. Earl Dean , the supervisor of the bottle molding room at Root Glass Company of Terra Haute, designed the bottle based on the shape of a cacao seed pod. Thanks to its unique shape, customers can distinguish Coke bottle from any other bottle by feel alone.
5. “There’s nothing like the real thing.” New Coke (as customers called the changed recipe that Coca-Cola released in April of 1985) might have been good enough for the astronauts to bring to space, but not for the American public. In July 1985, just 3 months after it was replaced by the new formula, the company brought back its original recipe under the name “Coca-Cola Classic”. New Coke–or Coca-Cola II as it came to be called–is no longer sold in the United States.
6. Looking to cut your sugar? The average American consumes 142 pounds of sugar per year. Based on the fact that the most of us drink 125.7 classic Coca-Colas a year, and there are 39 grams of sugar in each serving, about 10.8 pounds of the sugar consumed by each person comes from Coke.
7. Please recycle. 300,000 tons of aluminum–17.4% of the United State’s aluminum production–go into making Coke cans each year. That is a lot of metal.
8. Mexicans really love their Coca-Cola. While American, British, Chinese and Indian customers drink a combined average of 642 servings of Coke products per year, Mexicans drink 665 servings.
9. Coke is kosher. The Coca-Cola company took the risk of releasing its super secret recipe to the scrutiny of Rabbi Tobias Gefen in 1935 in order to ensure that its Orthodox Jewish customers could drink Coke without fear of breaking their dietary laws. Kasherizing Coke meant replacing glycerin made with unkosher beef tallow with a glycerin made with coconut and cottonseed oil, as well as changing the recipe from one that used grain-based sugar to one that used beet or cane sugar around Passover.
10. Coca-Cola is not just for drinking. Many people use Coke for everything from cleaning and stain removal to making a great ham.
As an expert who specializes in health, diet and lifestyle, Daniel writes for many websites including StretchMarks24 that contains information on stretch mark removal and health related topics.