For over a century now, the Coca-Cola formula is one of the most fiercely guarded trade secrets of the corporate world. Many claimed to have found it. And you will find quite a few such claimants on the internet. But the mystery and mystique of Merchandise 7X, the name given to the combination of secret ingredients which gives the soft drink its distinctive taste, has endured.
Now an American public radio show claims to have found the recipe kept in an Atlanta steel vault and which, it is said, only two employees of the company at a time know how to mix. For obvious reasons, the two never fly together.
'This American Life', broadcast on more than 500 stations to 1.7 million listeners, said it found the list of ingredients in a 40-year-old newspaper. On its website, thisamericanlife.org, it said the newspaper, named Atlanta Journal-Constitution, had published the photo of a book containing a handwritten replica of the original recipe on February 8, 1979.
The drink was created by pharmacist John Pemberton in 1886 and its recipe reportedly contains exact measures of all the different oils needed for 'Merchandise 7X'. The ingredient consists only 1% of the drink's total formula but gives the soft drink its defining taste.
The air of mystery around the formula has been a good marketing handle for the soft drink multinational. In a radio programme presented on the website, the presenter talks about Charles Howard Candler, whose father Asa, bought the business in 1888. Charles wrote that the drink had no written formula and in those early days, labels were removed from all containers so that they were remembered only by smells and where it was placed on the shelf. A Coca-Cola president would painstakingly delete the invoices of every mail so that even the account department would not know any of the ingredients bought for the product, the programme said.
The soft drink was the outcome of Pemberton's curiosity, according to Coca-Cola's US website. The pharmacist wanted a drink that could be "sold at soda fountains. He created a flavoured syrup, took it to his neighborhood pharmacy, where it was mixed with carbonated water and deemed excellent by those who sampled it". The drink was given its name by Frank Robinson, Pemberton's partner and bookkeeper.
The first servings of Coca-Cola were sold for five cents per glass. During the first year, sales averaged a modest nine servings per day in Atlanta, the website says. Daily servings today are estimated at 1.6 billion over more than 200 countries.
Now an American public radio show claims to have found the recipe kept in an Atlanta steel vault and which, it is said, only two employees of the company at a time know how to mix. For obvious reasons, the two never fly together.
'This American Life', broadcast on more than 500 stations to 1.7 million listeners, said it found the list of ingredients in a 40-year-old newspaper. On its website, thisamericanlife.org, it said the newspaper, named Atlanta Journal-Constitution, had published the photo of a book containing a handwritten replica of the original recipe on February 8, 1979.
The drink was created by pharmacist John Pemberton in 1886 and its recipe reportedly contains exact measures of all the different oils needed for 'Merchandise 7X'. The ingredient consists only 1% of the drink's total formula but gives the soft drink its defining taste.
The air of mystery around the formula has been a good marketing handle for the soft drink multinational. In a radio programme presented on the website, the presenter talks about Charles Howard Candler, whose father Asa, bought the business in 1888. Charles wrote that the drink had no written formula and in those early days, labels were removed from all containers so that they were remembered only by smells and where it was placed on the shelf. A Coca-Cola president would painstakingly delete the invoices of every mail so that even the account department would not know any of the ingredients bought for the product, the programme said.
The soft drink was the outcome of Pemberton's curiosity, according to Coca-Cola's US website. The pharmacist wanted a drink that could be "sold at soda fountains. He created a flavoured syrup, took it to his neighborhood pharmacy, where it was mixed with carbonated water and deemed excellent by those who sampled it". The drink was given its name by Frank Robinson, Pemberton's partner and bookkeeper.
The first servings of Coca-Cola were sold for five cents per glass. During the first year, sales averaged a modest nine servings per day in Atlanta, the website says. Daily servings today are estimated at 1.6 billion over more than 200 countries.
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