Coca-Cola From Then To Now Essays - Patent Medicines, Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola From Then To Now Coca-Cola enterprises Incorporated is a giant company that employs 66,199, operates 444 facilities, uses 47,235 vehicles, 1.9 million pieces of cold drink equipment and sold nearly 5.1 billion cases all over the world (Coca-Cola facts 99). These numbers are very impressive, and Coca-Cola may be the most powerful company in the world. An, Atlanta Pharmacist Dr. John Slyth Pemberton founded Coca-Cola on May 8, 1886. The drink was made with the caramel colored ingredients, coca leaves, kola nuts and a little something I like to call narcotics. The drink was first designed as a drug that will help people feel better. For five cents, you could enjoy a refreshing drink, and get laced into wit some potent drugs. These days, a crackheads dream, and also a sick reality. Some time later carbonated water was added to the syrup and that is how Coca-Cola was invented. Dr. Pemberton sold Coca-Cola out of the pharmacy he worked at. The pharmacy was owned by, a man named Frank M. Robinson. Robinson suggested Coca-Cola as a name for Pemberton's drink. The two men made a sign and hung it in the window saying Drink Coca-Cola. They sold around 9 cups of their drink a day. In 1886 Pemberton became sick and sold his interests, and shares to Asa G. Candler. In 1888 Pemberton died, and Asa Candler bought the outstanding shares. Candler was an Atlanta drug salesman and businessman. Candler had a feeling Coke was going to be big. He had complete control by 1891 for twenty-three hundred dollars. In 1892, Candler, his brother John Candler, Frank Robinson, and two other associates formed Coca-Cola Company in Georgia. Candler was a master at marketing. He handed out coupons for one free glass of Coca-Cola. He also promoted the beverage by painted walls, Clocks, outdoor posters, serving trays and fountain urns. Candlers marketing strategy worked, and soon Coke was available everywhere. The sales sky rocketed. People started calling Coca-Cola Coke They urged the customers to call it by its full name, but Coke just stuck. In 1894, the company opened its first syrup manufacturing plant outside Atlanta in Dallas Texas. The following year plants opened in Chicago and Los Angeles. Three years after the Coca-Cola Company's incorporation Candler announced in the annual report: Coca-Cola in the now drank in every state and territory in the United States (History of Coca-Cola Company). Joseph A. Biedenharn, of Vicksburg, Mississippi installed bottling machinery in his candy store in 1894 and became the first person to bottle Coca-Cola in the United States. Candler sold the Coca-Cola Company in 1919 for $25 million to an Atlanta banker named Ernest Woodruff . In 1923 E. Woodruff's 33-year-old son Robert Woodruff was elected president of Coca-Cola Company. The Business was re-incorporated as a Delaware corporation, and 500,000 shares of common stock were sold publicly for $40 per shares. Robert Woodruff bought Coca-Cola Company to even greater highs for more then six decades. In 1960, the Coca-Cola Company purchased minute Maid Corporation; adding frozen citrus juice concentrates along with the trademarks minute maid and Hi-C to the company's beverage line. The company later acquired Duncan foods, a coffee producer, and formed the Coca- Cola company foods Division in 1967, now known as the Minute Maid Company. From 1977-1983 the company produced and marketed wine in the United States. In 1982 Coca -Cola company bought Belmont Spring Water company Incorporated. Coca- Cola thought the Entertainment business would be good for them so, in 1982, the company acquired Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc, which joined Tri Star Pictures in 1987, to form the independent corporation Columbia Pictures Entertainment, Inc. Coca-Cola then sold Belmont Springs Water Company, Inc. 1989, closing out a decade of accelerated growth and change. In 1981 Roberto Goizueta a Cuban born chemical engineer rejuvenated the business. Although Coca-Cola had dabbled on several industries over the years, Goizueta engineered the largest of this diversification; the $700 million acquisition of Columbia pictures in 1982. In 1985, Coke changed its original recipe because the price of shares fell, but the New Coke bombed big time. The company was forced to change back to the original recipe. In 1986, it consolidated the U.S. bottling operation it owned