 | ||
The Coca-Cola formula is the Coca-Cola Company's secret recipe for Coca-Cola syrup, which bottlers combine with carbonated water to create the company's flagship cola soft drink. Company founder Asa Candler initiated the veil of secrecy that surrounds the formula in 1891 as a publicity, marketing, and intellectual property protection strategy. While several recipes, each purporting to be the authentic formula, have been published, the company maintains that the actual formula remains a secret, known only to a very few select (and anonymous) employees.
Contents
History
Coca-Cola inventor John Pemberton is known to have shared his original formula with at least four persons before his death in 1888. In 1891, Asa Candler purchased the rights to the formula from Pemberton's estate, founded the Coca-Cola Company, and instituted the shroud of secrecy that has since enveloped the formula. He also made significant changes to the ingredients list, which by most accounts improved the flavor, and also entitled him to claim that anyone in possession of Pemberton's original formula no longer knew the "real" formula.
In 1919, Ernest Woodruff led a group of investors in purchasing the company from Candler and his family. As collateral for the acquisition loan, Woodruff placed the only written copy of the secret formula in a vault at the lending bank, Guaranty Bank in New York. In 1925, when the loan had been repaid, Woodruff relocated the written formula to the Trust Company Bank (now SunTrust Bank) in Atlanta. On December 8, 2011, the company placed it in a vault on the grounds of the World of Coca-Cola in Atlanta, where it remains on public "display".
According to the company, only two employees are privy to the complete formula at any given time, and they are not permitted to travel together. When one dies, the other must choose a successor within the company and impart the secret to that person. The identity of the two employees in possession of the secret is itself a secret.
During the late 19th century, Coca-Cola was one of many popular coca-based drinks with purported medicinal properties and benefits to health; early marketing materials claimed that Coca-Cola alleviated headaches and acted as a "brain and nerve tonic". Coca leaves were used in Coca-Cola's preparation; the small amount of cocaine they contained—along with caffeine—provided the drink's "tonic" quality. In 1903, cocaine was removed, leaving caffeine as the sole stimulant ingredient, and all medicinal claims were dropped. According to some sources, coca leaf extract, with the cocaine chemically removed, remained part of the formula. By one account, the FDA still screens random samples of Coca-Cola syrup for the presence of cocaine. The company will not confirm or deny that the current version of Coca-Cola contains coca leaf extract, deferring to the secret nature of the formula.
In 1911 the United States Government sued the Coca-Cola Company for violations of the Pure Food and Drugs Act, claiming that the high concentration of caffeine in Coca-Cola syrup was harmful to health. The case was decided in favor of Coca-Cola, but a portion of the decision was set aside in 1916 by the Supreme Court. As part of a settlement, the company agreed to reduce the amount of caffeine in its syrup.
Current ingredients
The company protects the secrecy of its syrup recipe by shipping ingredients to its syrup factories in the form of anonymous "merchandises", numbered 1 through 9. Factory managers are told the relative proportions of each numbered merchandise, and the mixing procedure, but not the ingredients in the merchandises, some of which are themselves mixtures of more basic ingredients. Merchandise no. 1 is known to be sugar, in the form of high-fructose corn syrup or sucrose (see variations, below); caramel is no. 2, caffeine is no. 3, and phosphoric acid is no. 4. The identities of merchandises 5 through 9 are a matter of considerable debate—particularly the legendary "merchandise 7X" (the "X" has never been explained), which is thought to contain a mixture of essential oils such as orange, lime, and lemon that is essential to Coca-Cola's flavor.
Sugar is overwhelmingly the major ingredient (other than water): one 600 ml bottle (≈20.29 U.S. fl. oz.) of Coca-Cola contains the approximate equivalent of 15 teaspoons of sugar. Despite the implications of its name, there is no evidence that the current version of Coca-Cola syrup contains either coca leaf or kola nut extract; both substances have unpleasant, bitter flavors completely unlike that of Coca-Cola. The primary taste of Coca-Cola is thought to come from vanilla and cinnamon, with trace amounts of essential oils, and spices such as nutmeg.
Formula variations in the United States
During the 1980s, most U.S. Coca-Cola bottlers switched their primary sweetening ingredient from cane sugar (sucrose) to less expensive high-fructose corn syrup. The only U.S. bottler still using sucrose year-round is the Coca-Cola Bottling Company of Cleveland, which serves northern Ohio and a portion of Pennsylvania. Many bottlers outside the U.S. also continue to use sucrose as the primary sweetener. Twelve-ounce glass bottles of sucrose-sweetened Coca-Cola imported from Mexico are available in many U.S. markets for those consumers who prefer the sucrose version (see "Mexican Coke", below).
Passover
Coca-Cola was certified Kosher in 1935 by Rabbi Tobias Geffen after beef tallow-derived glycerin was replaced with vegetable glycerin. However, the high-fructose corn syrup used by most U.S. bottlers since the 1980s renders it kitniyot by the definitions of Jewish kosher law, and therefore forbidden to Orthodox Ashkenazi Jews in the Diaspora during Passover. Each year, in the weeks leading up to Passover, United States bottlers in markets with substantial Jewish populations switch to sucrose sweetener in order to obtain Kosher for Passover certification.
"New Coke"
In April 1985, the company replaced the familiar Coca-Cola product in the U.S. and Canada with a sweeter and less effervescent version called "New Coke". The new formulation was not well received, and the company quickly reintroduced the original beverage under the name "Coca-Cola Classic". The two products were briefly marketed simultaneously, but production ceased on New Coke the following year. The "Classic" designation remained on the Coca-Cola label in North America, its font size gradually decreasing over the next two decades, until it was removed entirely in 2009.
Mexican Coke
In the early 2000s, cane sugar-sweetened Coca-Cola produced in Mexico began to appear in bodegas and Hispanic supermarkets in the Southwest; in 2005, Costco began offering it. All were obtaining the Mexican product—which was not labeled in accordance with U.S. food labeling laws—outside the official Coca-Cola distribution network. In 2009, the Coca-Cola Company began officially importing Coca-Cola produced in Mexico, with proper labeling, for distribution through official channels.
Pemberton recipe
Coca-Cola inventor John Pemberton is said to have written this recipe in his diary shortly before his death in 1888. The recipe does not specify when or how the ingredients are mixed, nor the flavoring oil quantity units of measure (though it implies that the "Merchandise 7X" was mixed first). This was common in recipes at the time, as it was assumed that preparers knew the method.
Reed recipe
This recipe is attributed to pharmacist John Reed.
Merory recipe
Recipe is from Food Flavorings: Composition, Manufacture and Use. Makes one 1 US gallon (3.8 l; 0.83 imp gal) of syrup. Yield (used to flavor carbonated water at 1 US fl oz (30 ml) per bottle): 128 bottles, 6.5 US fl oz (190 ml).
Beal/This American Life recipe
In 2011, Ira Glass announced on his PRI radio show, This American Life, that TAL staffers had found a recipe in "Everett Beal's Recipe Book", reproduced in the February 28, 1979, issue of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, that they believed was either Pemberton's original formula for Coca-Cola, or a version that he made either before or after the product hit the market in 1886. The formula is very similar to the one found in Pemberton's diary. Coca-Cola archivist Phil Mooney acknowledged that the recipe "could ... be a precursor" to the formula used in the original 1886 product, but emphasized that the original formula is not the same as the one used in the current product.
The secret 7X flavor (use 2 oz of flavor to 5 gals syrup):
Commercial teaser
On January 23, 2011, in a commercial aired during the NFL Football AFC Championship Game, Coca-Cola teased that they would share the secret formula, only to flash a chemical "formula" for a few frames. This required the use of a video recording device to freeze on the formula for any analysis, which ultimately proved to be a marketing ploy with no intention of sharing the full official formula. Ingredients listed in the commercial included nutmeg oil, lime juice, cocoa [sic], vanilla, caffeine, "flavoring", and "a smile".