Some Fascinating Facts About Coke

This came from the book Citizen Coke by Bartow Elmore

Coke- cola was the world's most valuable brand in 2012. It was selling more than 1.8 billion beverage servings per day ( one serving for every four people on Earth. It was the twenty-second - most profitable company in the United States, with revenues topping$48 billion and net income over 9 billion, making it one of the greatest profit-generating businesses in world history.

Coke never really owned the name coca-cola. The first half of Coca-Cola's moniker was merely appropriated from the ancient language of the Quechua people of South America. Over 5,000 years ago , those Peruvian Highlanders first coined the term coca to describe a shrub that grew along the steep, verdant slopes of the Andes. The Quechua became attached to this plant because they found that chewing it's leaves kept them energized through out the day. Coca leaf contained small quantities of cocaine, an alkaloid later identified in the pharmacological world as triple reuptake inhibitor, which meant it prevented the human body from storing important transmitters that regulate blood flow and mood states. The result was that the Andeans felt more alert and invigorated over longer periods of time while consuming coca leaves.


Between 1943 and 1954, Coke had spent$46.4 million on caffeine. It doubled it's annual consumption of the drug , consuming well over a million pounds per year by 1955. With the military paving the way, Coke's oversees sales exploded. The company sold over 10 billion bottles of it's soft drink to Us soldiers between 1941 and 1945.