Frequently Asked Questions

No. Coca‑Cola didn't start as a medicine but it was invented by a doctor and pharmacist, Dr John S Pemberton.

Did you know? Coca‑Cola was invented in May 1886 in Atlanta, Georgia and was first sold in Jacobs’ Pharmacy where it was on sale for five cents (about N19) a glass.

Find out about the history of Coca‑Cola 

The Vault of the Secret Formula at the World of Coca‑Cola in the United States.

The secret formula of Coca‑Cola has been on an eventful journey over the years:

1886 – Dr. John S. Pemberton invents Coca‑Cola in Atlanta.

1892 – Asa Candler buys the rights to the Coca‑Cola business and the secret formula.

1919 – Ernest Woodruff and a group of investors buy the company from Candler, using the secret formula as collateral for a loan. Woodruff asks Candler's son to write the formula down and places the paper in a vault in the Guaranty Bank in New York.

1925 – Woodruff repays his loan and redeems the secret formula, bringing it back home to Atlanta and placing it in Trust Company Bank.

2011 – After 86 years, the secret formula is moved to the World of Coca‑Cola in Atlanta. Thousands of people visit the Vault of the Secret Formula every year.

Did you know? Only a few people in the world know the secret formula of Coca‑Cola.

Catch the latest stories about our history, memorabilia and advertising

Dr John S Pemberton. He invented Coca‑Cola on 8th May 1886 in Atlanta, Georgia. Dr Pemberton tried it out on customers at his local chemist, Jacobs' Pharmacy, where it proved so popular it immediately went on sale at five cents a glass.

Did you know? It was Dr Pemberton's friend and business partner, Frank M Robinson, who came up with the name Coca‑Cola. He wrote it out by hand in the Spencerian script that we still use as our logo.

Find out about the history of Coca‑Cola.

Whether you drink it from a can or a bottle, Coca‑Cola is always the same. It’s the same recipe, the same ingredients and the same manufacturing process every time.

Did you know? Your perception of taste can be influenced by lots of things, like how cold the Coca‑Cola is or whether you drink it straight from the can or pour it into a glass.

More than 1.9 billion servings of our drinks are enjoyed in more than 200 countries each day.

We’re always listening to feedback from our fans about their favourite drinks, and sometimes decide to phase out less popular brands or flavours based on these conversations. But don’t worry, we’re always experimenting with new flavours too.

Explore our brands and their range of delicious flavours here.

The basic ingredients and process used to make Coca‑Cola are the same in all countries, although people perceive taste in very different ways. It is possible for the same soft drink to vary slightly in taste due to other factors such as the temperature at which it is consumed, the foods with which it is consumed, or the conditions in which it is stored prior to consumption.

Get the facts about all our drinks.

The new black caps have the name of the variant (Coca‑Cola Zero Sugar) printed on them, along with the sugar free information. The new cap colour makes it easier for you to recognize our zero sugar bottles and to see the choices available.

No. Over the last few decades, we’ve expanded our range of drinks to include more than just sparkling soft drinks such as Coca‑Cola, Sprite, Fanta, Schweppes and Limca.

We also offer bottles of water such as Eva still water and juice drinks like 5 Alive.

Coca‑Cola Zero Sugar
Sprite Zero
Fanta Zero
Eva Still Water

35 g in a 330 ml can.

As a general rule, there’s 10.6 g of sugar per 100 ml of Coca‑Cola Original Taste.

Did you know? 35 g of sugar amounts to about 7 teaspoons of sugar.

Find out how sugar is being reduced in Coca‑Cola system drinks.

A low-calorie sweetener.

We use aspartame in combination with another low-calorie sweetener, acesulfame-K, to give a sweet taste to some of the Coca‑Cola system drinks.

Did you know? Aspartame is about 200 times sweeter than sugar.

Find out more about aspartame via BNF and Diabetes UK. 

Find out how we’re reducing sugar in our drinks.

None.

We use a  blend of low-calorie sweeteners and flavourings to make Coca‑Cola Zero Sugar taste even more like Coca‑Cola Classic.

We recommend that anyone with diabetes who has questions about their diet contact their doctor.

For people who want to reduce their sugar and calorie intake, including those with diabetes, we offer a variety of great-tasting drinks with reduced, low or no sugar and calories, like Coca‑Cola Less Sugar, Coca‑Cola Zero Sugar, Fanta Zero and Sprite Zero. It’s also why we offer many of our drinks in small pack sizes. We provide information on how much sugar and how many calories are in our drinks, so people can choose what makes sense for them and their families

Thousands of people. The Coca‑Cola Company is a public company that trades its shares on the New York stock exchange - so we are 'owned' by our thousands of shareholders and investors around the world.

Did you know? The first Coca‑Cola shares were issued in 1919 and the initial stock symbol used for The Coca‑Cola Company was CCO. By 1923, the symbol "KO" replaced "CCO."

Find out more about our business.

Yes, but in a good way.

The formula for making Coca‑Cola is a trade secret. We have protected the special taste of Coca‑Cola for more than 130 years. Only The Coca‑Cola Company knows how to make Coca‑Cola. That way, when you buy one of our drinks, you can be sure you’re getting the same delicious and refreshing experience time and time again!

Did you know? The most closely guarded and best-kept secret in the food and drinks industry, the Coca‑Cola formula is a complex blend of natural flavours. Although it has been frequently imitated, it has never been replicated.

At The Coca‑Cola Company, we believe profitability is important, but not at any cost. We care about people and the planet, and we are actively working toward solutions that benefit us all.

This includes efforts to:

Reduce plastic waste

Manage our water use responsibly

Support women’s empowerment and advancement around the world

Promote diversity, inclusion and equality in our workplace

Aid our local communities in times of need

The world has a packaging waste problem, and our World Without Waste vision aims to help solve it. A litter-free world is possible, and we want to help lead the way. At Coca‑Cola, we believe every package has value and life beyond its initial use and should be collected and recycled into either a new package or another beneficial use.

It is unacceptable that packages end up in the wrong place, in our oceans and waterways or littering the communities where we work and live. We have a responsibility to help ensure our impact is a positive one, and our actions inspire others to help generate solutions that leave our world better for generations to come. We aim to fundamentally change how we Design, Collect and Partner with others to improve packaging sustainability.

1. Design: We’re working to build better bottles because packaging should not harm our world. The New Twist Eva 50cl Bottle demonstrates our commitment to rethinking our packaging. It has 18% less plastic and is designed to make segregation simply for consumers. Our goal is to make all our consumer packaging 100% recyclable globally. Simply put, if someone wants to recycle one of our packages, they should be able to.

2. Collect: The Coca‑Cola Nigeria and its bottling partner Nigeria Bottling Company are leading the industry to help collect and recycle a bottle or can for everyone we sell by 2030. We’re working to bring people together to help us collect and recycle a bottle we sell. Regardless of where it comes from, we want every package to have more than one life.

3. Partner: Waste collectors, industry leaders, government, NGOs, waste aggregators, developing partners and consumers are important partners in helping to achieve a World Without Waste. Over the past 10 years, we have deliberately formed partnerships and alliances with many partners.

Some of our initiatives includes:

1. $1.7million of cumulative investment by Coca‑Cola Nigeria and our bottling partner, Nigeria Bottling company in a local recycling company Alkem (2005-2011) to ensure plastics are collected and recycled into other uses.

2. So far Over 1 billion bottles have been recycled

3. 1,800+ direct and indirect jobs created

4. We have successfully led the Coalition of an Industry group known as the Food and Beverage Recycling alliance (FBRA), an industry partnership between Coca‑Cola, the Nigerian Bottling Company, Nestle Plc, 7up Bottling Company and Nigerian Breweries plc, to build a sustainable recycling economy for food and beverage packaging waste. FBRA is a full producer responsibility organization registered with NESREA to drive packaging waste recovery from the environment.

5. In July,2018, FBRA signed 3-year partnership with the Lagos State Government, through the Ministry of Transportation and Environment, to rid the state’s waterways of plastic and packaging waste.

6. Through FBRA, we have engaged various stakeholders to create an ecosystem that drives collective sustainable action towards managing our post-consumer plastics. Our goal is to work together with other stakeholders to set up collection points in communities in line with our ambition of collecting and recycling 100% of our packaging by 2030.

7. Major collection partners include: RecyclePoints, West Africa Energy, Chanja datti and many other collectors to collect, process and deliver the required tons of plastic for recycling. You too can recycle for rewards. So far over 450 tons of plastics have been recovered and recycled under this partnership.

8. FBRA have launched community recycling programme, partnering with communities and industry – to clean up existing packaging, we’re bringing people together through programmes like beach and river clean-ups, community buy back schemes and other ongoing local activities. To encourage more people to recycle more often, we’re investing to help people understand what to recycle, how to recycle, and where to recycle.

It is a collective responsibility, we invite everyone to join us on this journey so that together we can create a litter free world. To sign up to deliver your plastic waste for rewards, kindly register on http://www.recyclepoints.com

Yes. We’re aware there are hoax emails and text messages in circulation that claim – quite falsely – to belong to a Coca‑Cola promotion. They’re scams designed to extract financial information from you. So please ignore them.

Signs of a hoax Coca‑Cola email

• looks official and appears to come from a financial institution
• contains a claim number and may even include a false cheque that appears to be from Coca‑Cola
• has spelling and grammar errors
• uses improper company trademarks
• is sent from a free, non-corporate email account
• asks for personal information and promises a quick financial gain.

Please be vigilant and, if you have any concerns, get in touch.

Rumour-mongers have claimed that Coca‑Cola, due to its acidic nature, can be used to clean toilets and corroded car batteries, loosen rusted bolts and remove rust spots from car bumpers, get rid of grease from clothing and clean road haze from windshields.

It’s true there is a small amount of edible acid present in Coca‑Cola – just as there is in many foods and drinks. And it’s quite possible that this edible acid could do the things the rumour-mongers claim. But we wouldn’t recommend using it for any of these purposes. Just stick to the regular cleaning products…

Did you know? The edible acid in Coca‑Cola is perfectly safe to drink. It’s not even as strong as your natural stomach acid.

Get the facts about all our drinks.

Coca‑Cola did not create the legend of Santa Claus. But Coca‑Cola advertising did play a big role in shaping the jolly character we know today.

Before 1931, there were many different depictions of Santa Claus around the world, including a tall gaunt man and an elf —there was even a scary Claus.

But in 1931, Coca‑Cola commissioned illustrator Haddon Sundblom to paint Santa for Christmas advertisements. Those paintings established Santa as a warm, happy character with human features, including rosy cheeks, a white beard, twinkling eyes and laughter lines.

To avoid confusion with copycat brands, The Coca‑Cola Company asked the Root Glass Company in Terra Haute, Indiana, to create a package that was “so distinctive that it could be recognized by touch alone and so unique it could be identified when shattered on the ground.”

The result was the iconic Coca‑Cola bottle inspired by the curves and grooves of the gourd-shaped cocoa bean, an ingredient the designers originally thought was in the product.

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.