123 of Coca-Cola [Infographic]

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Fascinating Facts About Coca-Cola

When it comes to business there are very few companies that compare to the corporate giant that is the Coca-Cola Company. This year the company turns 123 having been launched in 1892, and it is fascinating to track how the business has gone from a small medicinal retailer to the world’s largest and most recognised beverage producer.

Coca-Cola is sold in more countries than there are in the United Nations, and the term Coca-Cola stands in the top of most understood terms in the world. The Coca-Cola brand is worth more than Budweiser, Pepsi, Starbucks and Red Bull combined. To give you an idea of how colossal this beverage giant is, if every drop of Coke ever produced were put in 8-ounce bottles and laid end-to-end, they would reach the moon and back over 2,000 times.

Did you know that every day an average of 1.8 billion Coke bottles are sold, yet only 25 Coke bottles sold in The Coca-Cola Company’s first year? This infographic from Westways Vending explores 123 fascinating facts about the world’s favourite beverage, and demonstrates exactly how big a small business can grow.

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The 123 of Coca-Cola

The Coca-Cola Company turns 123 this year, having been launched in 1982. Discover 123 fascinating facts about the world’s favorite beverage!

The Company

1. The Coca-Cola Company employees 146,200 people worldwide
2. There are a total of 3,500 Coca-Cola products
3. There are 1.8 billion coke bottles sold each day
4. Yet only 25 coke bottles sold in the coca-cola company’s first year
5. There are 275 coke bottling companies worldwide
6. Coke has had increased dividends for 50 consecutive years
7. 10,450 Coca-Cola brand drinks are consumed each second
8. Coca-Cola sells more than 1000 kinds of juice drinks
9. It took 58 years, until 1944, to sell the first billion gallons of Coca-Cola syrup. Today, that billion gallon mark falls approximately every 75 months
10. Coca-Cola Packaging is Responsible for 30% and 70% of the product’s carbon footprint
11. Coca-Cola trucks travel over 1,000,000 miles a day to supply consumers with soft drinks
12. 70% of the energy needed to make and supply drinks comes from refrigerating drinks at the point of sale
13. Coca-cola aims to cut CO2 emissions by 15% from its 2007 level

The History

14. John Stith Pemberton, the creator of Coke, was a colonel in the Confederate Army
15. As a Civil War veteran Pemberton turned to morphine, and later, coa to relieve his illnesses and pain
16. The original Coca-Coal prototype was both alcoholic and laced with cocaine!
17. Pemberton took the alcohol out of his original Coke wine formulate due to prohibition
18. Cocaine was removed from the drink in 1903, and banned in the US in 1917
19. Coke invented the Six Pack! In 1923, the company began selling bottles in packages of six
20. Coke was originally marketed as a cure to many ailments including low sexual libido
21. Sigmund Freud said Coke cured him of periodic depression and gave him a sex drive
22. In 1899, Coca-Cola became available in bottles as well as soda fountains, allowing black Americans access to the drink for the first time
23. Acclaimed artist Norman Rockwell created art for Coca-Cola ads
24. During WWII Coca-Cola made sure “that every American in uniform gets a bottle of Coca-Cola.”
25. More than 5 million bottles of Coke were drunk by military personnel during WWII
26. During WWII an American soldier raffled Coke off at 25 cents a shot and made over $4,000 for charity!
27. Soldiers were said to depend on Coca-Cola heavily during wartime, as a pick-me-up; said one base surgeon, “I cannot conceive of a great calamity worse than a loss of the base supply of Coca-Cola.”
28. Coca-Cola was exempt from sugar rationing when sold to the military and bases, other companies took hits up to 50%
29. A Soviet Union Marshal commissioned a colourless Coca-Cola resembling vodka because he liked the taste, so that he could drink Coke without offending Joseph Stalin
30. Fanta was invented in Nazi Germany because of the difficulty faced by the company in importing Coca-Cola syrup during war
31. During WWII German forces in Africa would strap Coke bottles wrapped in towels to their aircraft wings in order to cool it
32. Between 1922 and 1933, the Coca-Cola Company was offered the opportunity to purchase the Pepsi-Cola company three times, Coca-Cola declined on all three occasions
33. Coca-Cola is the oldest sponsor of Olympic Games, sponsoring since 1928
34. By the 1950s, automobile service stations sold more Coca-Cola than they did motor oil!
35. When Martin Luther King Jr. won the Nobel Peace Prize, Atlanta threw him a celebration party that almost had to be cancelled due to opposition. Coca-Cola’s CEO threatened to take the company out of Atlanta out of embarrassment that the city’s people won’t honour their Nobel Prize winner
36. In the 1980s, the company attempted a “Coke in the Morning” campaign to try to win over coffee drinkers
37. In July 1985, Coca-Cola became the first soft drink to be enjoyed in outer space
38. Coca-Cola spent about $1.7 million for the “The Coalition Against The Costly Food Labelling Proposition”
39. The first outdoor sign advertising Coca-Cola still exists. It was originally painted in 1894 and is located in Cartersville, Georgia

The Production

40. One of the first ingredients was damiana, a flowering shrub that has anti-anxiety and aphrodisiac qualities
41. Coca-Cola’s original formula included extracts of the African kola nut and coca leaves, both strong stimulants
42. Coke uses 300,000 tons of aluminum for its cans every year just for its US operations
43. Coke can production uses 17.4% of what the entire US aluminum industry produces
44. Coca leaves are still used in Coca-Cola. A company in New Jersey extracts Cocaine from the leaves for medical uses and then ships the remainder to Coke.
45. In order for Coca-Cola to continue to operate its current form, the company has a special arrangement with the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) to allow them to import dried coca leaves in huge quantities

The Money

46. The Coca-Cola Company’s Annual Revenue is $47.51 billion
47. Total Cash Assets rest at $16.97 billion
48. Coke’s Enterprise Value is $189.2 billion
49. The Current Stock Value on the NYSE is $38.58
50. The Average stock value over the past 10 years has been $26.25
51. A single share of Coke that was purchased in 1919 would be worth $92,500 today
52. In 2013 The Coca-Cola Company’s revenues declined by 2%
53. Foreign currency fluctuations also decreased consolidated net operating revenues
54. Although Coca-Cola revenue was 38% less than PepsiCola’s last year, Coke generated more in soft drink revenue — around $28 billion vs $12 billion
55. Coca-Cola will invest $5 billion with its bottling partners in Africa by 2020
56. In 2014 the company acquired a 16.7 equity stake in Monster Beverage Corp.
57. In 2013 it bought ZICO beverages, a maker of ZICO Pure Premium Coconut Water
58. Coca-Cola’s $35.1 billion in revenue makes it the 84th largest economy in the world, just ahead of Costa Rica

59. Coca-Cola makes 58% of its sales outside the US, in some 200 countries worldwide
60. Coca-Cola is sold in more countries than there are in the United Nations
61. Cuba and North Korea are the only countries in the world that don’t sell Coca-Cola
62. If every drop of Coke ever produced were put in 8-ounce bottles and laid end-to-end, they would reach the moon and back over 2,000 times
63. If you stacked up Coke’s 2.8 million vending machines, they would take up 150.2 million cubic feet of space — the size of 4 Empire State Buildings
64. If you could collect all the bottles of Coca-Cola ever produced and hand them out, each person on the planet would receive over 1000 bottles
65. If you could pour all the Coca-Cola ever produced into a swimming pool, you would need a reservoir about 30 kilometers long with the width of 15 kilometers and depth of 200 meters about half a billion people could swim there
66. If you could make a chain from all the bottles of Coca-Cola ever consumed since the beginning of the brand, this chain could go around the Earth’s orbit over 4000 times

The Brand

67. The Brand value of Coca-Cola is $79.2 billion
68. The term Coca-Cola stands in the top of most understood terms in the world
69. The Coca-Cola brand is worth more than Budweiser, Pepsi, Starbucks, and Red Bull combined
70. Coca-Cola has 93.3 million Facebook fans
71. 96% of the world’s population recognize the Coca-Cola logo
72. The “cola” part of the name comes from the kola nut
73. The Coca-Cola Company has a 25.9% market share in soft drinks market
74. Coca-Cola has a product portfolio of more than 3,500 beverages
75. There are 33 non-alcoholic brands that generate over $1 billion in revenue. Coca-Cola owns 15 of them
76. Coca-Cola was first shipped whiskey kegs and barrels, but they were painted red to give them a distinctive mark. The colour red has been associated with the product ever since

The Consumption

77. 1.7 billion servings of Coke products are consumed every day
78. Around the world, the average person consumes a Coke product every four days
79. 3.1% of all beverages consumed around the world are Coca-Cola products
80. If you drank one beverage per day from the Coca-Cola range it would take you over 9 years to try them all
81. Americans drink an average of 399 servings of Coke products per year
82. Americans ingest 1.7 million tons of sugar each year from Coca-Cola alone
83. The consumption of Coca-Cola Classic in the U.S. exceeds that of bottle water, juices, powdered drinks, wine, and distilled spirits
84. On average, Mexicans drink 665 servings of Coke products each year
85. The average Mexican drinks more Coke products than the average American, British, Indian, and Chinese combined
86. In Brazil, a local bottler makes 3-day trips up the Amazon River to deliver Coca-Cola to remote locations!
87. The greater Mexico City bottler produces the greatest volume of any Coca-Cola bottler

The Marketing

88. Coca-Cola spends on average $3.26 billion a year on advertising expenses
89. Coca-Cola spends more money on advertising than Microsoft and Apple combined
90. Diet coke was associated with women so Coca-Cola created Coke Zero for men
91. Coca-Cola tried to market “OK” soda so they would have products named with the two most recognizable words in the world
92. Coca-Cola tried hidden “MagiCans” that had spring-loaded prizes instead of soda
93. The slogan “Good to the Last Drop” was first used by Coca-Cola Company in 1908
94. In 2001, Coca-Cola ran a program called H2NO – A campaign to teach waiters at Olive Garden how to get customers to say “No” to H2O.
95. Coca-Cola shaped the modern depiction of ‘Santa Claus’
96. Pre-Coca-Cola ads depicted Santa as a tall and “gaunt” man usually dressed in blue
97. Swedish-American artist Haddon Sundblom drew a fat, jolly man wearing Coca-Cola red
98. The move is seen as Coca-Cola’s first attempt to market to children, albeit subtly
99. From the beginning, Coca-Cola employed successful strategies such as creating non-Coke products like calendars and clocks and using pretty female spokesmodels
100. The first celebrity endorsements from Coca-Cola were singer Hilda Clark and opera star Lillian Nordica
101. Coca-Cola ending machines could automatically alter the price of soda according to that day’s temperature during the 90s
102. Coca-Cola Freestyle (the touch screen drink machines) are designed by Pininifarina, the design house that designs Fararris
103. During Passover, Coca-Cola sells Coke with sugar instead of corn syrup in areas with a substantial Jewish population because corn syrup isn’t kosher

The Versatility

104. Coca-Cola can be used to remove blood stains from clothes
105. Pouring Coke over car battery terminals you can clean up corrosion
106. Marker stains can be removed from carpet using Coke
107. You can soak your vitreous China in Coke to lift stains
108. Coke can eliminate grease stains better than detergent alone
109. Soak your hair in Diet Coke and remove any permanent hair dye with ease
110. Remove gum from hair by soaking it in Coke for 15 minutes, it will wipe out
111. Coca-Cola can be used to Clean all the burnt food at the bottom of a pan
112. Coke can strip paint from a metal surface, soak a towel in Coke and then lay it over the paint for a few hours, the paint will come off when you remove the towel
113. You can use Coca-Cola to clean oil stains off a garage floor, pour the Coke on the stains, let it soak, and then rinse it off, including the oil stains with some water
114. Clean pennies by putting them in a bowl with some Coke for a few hours
115. The high acidity of Coke can kill snails and slugs easily
116. Floor tile grout can be cleaned by letting Coke sit on the grout for a few minutes, the dirt should wipe away
117. Clean chrome with Coke and aluminum foil. Simply pour the Coke on to the dirty chrome and wipe with the aluminum foil to make the chrome shine like new
118. The high acidity of Coke can make a toilet bowl sparkling clean
119. To remove rust from objects, soak them in Coca-Cola overnight, then scrub in the morning
120. Coca-Cola helps ease the pain of different types of stings. Try pouring Coca-Cola on bee and jellyfish stings, and mosquito bites
121. To quicken the time it takes to defrost your frozen windshield, pour a can or bottle of Coca-Cola over the icy area first. Wait a few minutes, and it should be much easier to scrape the ice off
122. Coca-Cola can provide temporary relief for stomach ailments such as indigestion and heartburn. Drinking a flat Coca-Cola can be helpful with both nausea and diarrhea
123. The citric acid in Coca-Cola makes it a great window cleaner the same way citrus fruit types of window cleaners work

Disclaimer: Westways Vending is not affiliated with The Coca-Cola Company.

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