The Coca-Cola Company operates as a beverage company.
The company owns or licenses and markets numerous beverage brands, which are grouped into the following categories: Trademark Coca-Cola; sparkling flavors; water, sports, coffee, and tea; juice, value-added dairy, and plant-based beverages; and emerging beverages. The company owns and markets several of nonalcoholic sparkling soft drink brands, including Coca-Cola, Sprite, Coca-Cola Zero Sugar, Fanta, and Diet Coke/Coca-Cola Light.
The comp...
The Coca-Cola Company operates as a beverage company.
The company owns or licenses and markets numerous beverage brands, which are grouped into the following categories: Trademark Coca-Cola; sparkling flavors; water, sports, coffee, and tea; juice, value-added dairy, and plant-based beverages; and emerging beverages. The company owns and markets several of nonalcoholic sparkling soft drink brands, including Coca-Cola, Sprite, Coca-Cola Zero Sugar, Fanta, and Diet Coke/Coca-Cola Light.
The company makes its branded beverage products available to consumers throughout the world through its network of independent bottling partners, distributors, wholesalers, and retailers, as well as its consolidated bottling and distribution operations. Beverages bearing trademarks owned by or licensed to the company account for 2.2 billion of the estimated 65 billion servings of all beverages consumed worldwide every day.
Operating Segments
The company’s operating structure includes the following operating segments: Europe, Middle East and Africa; Latin America; North America; Asia Pacific; Global Ventures; and Bottling Investments.
Additionally, the company’s operating structure includes operating units, which sit under its four geographic operating segments.
The company’s operating structure also includes Corporate, which consists of two components: a center focusing on strategic initiatives, policy, governance, and scaling global initiatives; and a platform services organization supporting the operating units, global marketing category teams, and the center by providing efficient and scaled global services and capabilities, including but not limited to, transactional work, data management, consumer analytics, digital commerce, and social/digital hubs.
Products and Brands
‘Trademark Sprite’ includes Sprite, Sprite Zero Sugar, etc.; and ‘Trademark Simply’ includes Simply Orange, Simply Apple, Simply Grapefruit, etc.
The company operates in two lines of business: concentrate operations and finished product operations.
The company's concentrate operations typically generate net operating revenues by selling beverage concentrates, sometimes referred to as ‘beverage bases,’ syrups, including fountain syrups, and certain finished beverages to authorized bottling operations (to which the company typically refers as its ‘bottlers’ or its ‘bottling partners’). The bottling partners either combine concentrates with still or sparkling water and sweeteners (depending on the product), or combine syrups with still or sparkling water, to produce finished beverages. The finished beverages are packaged in authorized containers, such as cans and refillable and nonrefillable glass and plastic bottles, bearing the company’s trademarks or trademarks licensed to it, and are then sold to retailers directly or, in some cases, through wholesalers or other bottlers. In addition, outside the United States, the company’s bottling partners are typically authorized to manufacture fountain syrups, using its concentrates, which they sell to fountain retailers for use in producing beverages for immediate consumption, or to authorized fountain wholesalers who, in turn, sell and distribute the fountain syrups to fountain retailers. The company’s concentrate operations are included in its geographic operating segments and its Global Ventures operating segment.
The company’s finished product operations generate net operating revenues by selling sparkling soft drinks and a variety of other finished beverages to retailers, or to distributors and wholesalers who, in turn, sell the beverages to retailers. Generally, finished product operations generate higher net operating revenues but lower gross profit margins than concentrate operations. These operations consist primarily of the company’s consolidated bottling and distribution operations, which are included in its Bottling Investments operating segment. In certain markets, the company also operates non-bottling finished product operations in which it sells finished beverages to distributors and wholesalers that are generally not one of the company’s bottling partners. These operations are generally included in one of the company’s geographic operating segments or its Global Ventures operating segment. Additionally, the company sells directly to consumers through retail stores operated by Costa. These sales are included in its Global Ventures operating segment. In the United States, the company manufactures fountain syrups and sells them to fountain retailers, who use the fountain syrups to produce beverages for immediate consumption, or to authorized fountain wholesalers or bottling partners who, in turn, sell and distribute the fountain syrups to fountain retailers. These fountain syrup sales are included in the company’s North America operating segment.
The company owns and markets numerous valuable beverage brands, including the following:
Sparkling soft drinks: Coca-Cola, Diet Coke/Coca-Cola Light, Coca-Cola Zero Sugar, Fanta, Fresca, Schweppes, Sprite, and Thums Up;
Water, sports, coffee, and tea: Aquarius, Ayataka, BODYARMOR, Ciel, Costa, Crystal, Dasani, dogadan, Fuze Tea, Georgia, glaceau smartwater, glaceau vitaminwater, Gold Peak, I LOHAS, Powerade, and Topo Chico; and
Juice, value-added dairy, and plant-based beverages: Core Power, Del Valle, fairlife, innocent, Maaza, Minute Maid, Minute Maid Pulpy, and Simply.
Schweppes is owned by the company in certain countries other than the United States.
The company has also directly entered the alcohol beverage category in numerous markets outside the United States. In the United States, the company has established a wholly owned, indirect, firewalled subsidiary, which uses third-party manufacturers and distributors to produce and sell alcohol products in certain regions of the United States and also authorizes alcohol-licensed third parties to use certain of its trademarks and related intellectual property on alcohol beverages that contain the company’s beverage bases. The company’s approach in alcohol focuses on three segments of alcohol ready-to-drink beverages: pre-mixed cocktails (e.g., Jack Daniel’s & Coca-Cola), flavored alcohol beverages (e.g., Lemon-Dou), and hard seltzers (e.g., Topo Chico Hard Seltzer).
In addition to the beverage brands the company owns, it also provides marketing support and otherwise participates in the sales of other beverage brands through licenses, joint ventures, and strategic relationships. For example, certain Coca-Cola system bottlers distribute certain brands of Monster, primarily Monster Energy, in designated territories in the United States, Canada, and other international territories pursuant to distribution coordination agreements between the company and Monster and related distribution agreements between Monster and Coca-Cola system bottlers.
Distribution System
The company makes its branded beverage products available to consumers in several countries and territories through its network of independent bottling partners, distributors, wholesalers, and retailers, as well as its consolidated bottling and distribution operations. Consumers enjoy finished beverage products bearing trademarks owned by or licensed to the company at a rate of 2.2 billion servings each day. The company’s strong and stable bottling and distribution system helps it capture growth by manufacturing, distributing, and selling existing, enhanced, and new innovative products to consumers throughout the world.
The company’s five largest independent bottling partners based on unit case volume in 2024 were as follows:
Coca-Cola FEMSA, S.A.B. de C.V. (‘Coca-Cola FEMSA’), which has bottling and distribution operations in Mexico (a substantial part of central Mexico, as well as southeast and northeast Mexico), Guatemala, Colombia (most of the country), Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Venezuela, Uruguay, Brazil (a major part of the states of São Paulo and Minas Gerais; the states of Mato Grosso do Sul, Paraná, Rio Grande do Sul, and Santa Catarina; and part of the states of Goiás and Rio de Janeiro), and Argentina (federal capital of Buenos Aires and surrounding areas);
Coca-Cola Europacific Partners plc (‘CCEP’), which has bottling and distribution operations in Andorra, Australia, Belgium, continental France, Germany, Great Britain, Iceland, Indonesia, Luxembourg, Monaco, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Pacific Islands, Norway, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden;
Coca-Cola HBC AG (‘Coca-Cola Hellenic’), which has bottling and distribution operations in Armenia, Austria, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Montenegro, Nigeria, North Macedonia, Northern Ireland, Poland, the Republic of Ireland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland, and Ukraine;
Arca Continental, S.A.B. de C.V., which has bottling and distribution operations in northern and western Mexico, northern Argentina, Ecuador, Peru, and the state of Texas and part of the states of New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Arkansas in the United States; and
Swire Coca-Cola Limited, which has bottling and distribution operations in various provinces and the Shanghai municipality in mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, and territories in various states in the western United States.
In 2024, these five bottling partners combined represented 44% of the company’s total worldwide unit case volume.
Bottler’s Agreements
The company has separate contracts, to which it generally refers as ‘bottler’s agreements,’ with its bottling partners under which the bottling partners are granted certain authorizations by the company.
Bottler’s Agreements Outside the United States
Bottler’s agreements between the company and its authorized bottlers outside the United States generally are of stated duration, subject in some cases to possible extensions or renewals.
In such instances, the company has authorized certain bottlers to prepare and package Company Trademark Beverages for sale to other bottlers or purchase Company Trademark Beverages from other bottlers for sale and distribution throughout their respective designated territories, often on a nonexclusive basis.
Bottler’s Agreements Within the United States
In the United States, most bottlers operate under a contract to which the company generally refers as a ‘Comprehensive Beverage Agreement’ (‘CBA’) that is of stated duration, subject in most cases to renewal rights of bottlers and in some cases to renewal rights of the company.
Certain U.S. bottlers have been granted certain additional exclusive territory rights for the distribution, promotion, marketing, and sale of company-owned and licensed beverage brands (as defined by the CBAs). The company refers to these bottlers as ‘expanding participating bottlers’ or ‘EPBs.’ EPBs operate under CBAs (‘EPB CBAs’) under which the company generally retained the rights to produce the applicable beverage products for territories not covered by specific manufacturing agreements, and such bottlers purchase from the company (or from company-authorized manufacturing bottlers) substantially all of the finished beverage products needed in order to service the customers in these territories. Each EPB CBA has a term of 10 years and is renewable, in most cases by the bottler, and in some cases by the company, indefinitely for successive additional terms of 10 years each, and includes additional requirements that provide for, among other things, a binding national governance model, mandatory incidence pricing, and certain core performance requirements. The company has also entered into manufacturing agreements that authorize certain EPBs that have executed EPB CBAs to manufacture certain beverage products for their own account and for supply to other bottlers.
In addition, certain U.S. bottlers that were not granted additional exclusive territory rights, which the company refers to as ‘participating bottlers,’ converted their legacy bottler’s agreements to CBAs, to which the company refers as ‘participating bottler CBAs,’ each of which has a term of 10 years, is renewable by the bottler indefinitely for successive additional terms of 10 years each, and is substantially similar in most material respects to the EPB CBAs, including with respect to requirements for a binding national governance model and mandatory incidence pricing, but includes core performance requirements that vary in certain respects from those in the EPB CBAs.
Under the terms of the bottler’s agreements, bottlers in the United States generally are not authorized to manufacture fountain syrups. Rather, the company manufactures and sells fountain syrups to authorized fountain wholesalers (including certain authorized bottlers) and some fountain retailers. These wholesalers, in turn, sell the syrups, or deliver them on behalf of the company, to restaurants and other retailers.
Promotional and Marketing Programs
In addition to conducting its own independent advertising and marketing activities. In most cases, the company does this on a discretionary basis under the terms of commitment letters or agreements, even though it is not obligated to do so under the terms of the bottler’s agreements between the company and the bottlers. Likewise, in many instances, the company provides promotional and marketing support and/or funds and/or dispensing equipment and repair services to fountain and bottle/can retailers, typically pursuant to marketing agreements.
Investments in Bottling Operations
Most of the company’s branded beverage products are prepared, packaged, distributed, and sold by independent bottling partners.
Seasonality
Sales of the company’s ready-to-drink beverages are somewhat seasonal, with the second and third calendar quarters (year ended December 2024) historically accounting for the highest sales volumes.
Competition
In many of the countries in which the company does business, PepsiCo, Inc. is a primary competitor. Other significant competitors include, but are not limited to, Nestlé S.A., Keurig Dr Pepper Inc., Danone S.A., Suntory Beverage & Food Limited, Anheuser-Busch InBev, Kirin Holdings, Heineken N.V., Diageo plc, and Red Bull GmbH.
Raw Materials
In the United States, the company purchases HFCS to meet its and its bottlers’ requirements with the assistance of Coca-Cola Bottlers’ Sales & Services Company LLC (‘CCBSS’). CCBSS is a limited liability company that is owned by authorized Coca-Cola bottlers doing business in the United States and Canada. Among other things, CCBSS provides procurement services to the company’s North American operations and to its U.S. and Canadian bottling partners for the purchase of various goods and services, including HFCS.
Governmental Regulation
In the United States, the safety, production, storage, transportation, distribution, advertising, marketing, labeling, and sale of the company’s products and their ingredients are subject to the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act; the Federal Trade Commission Act; the Lanham Act; state consumer protection laws; various federal and state laws and regulations governing competition and trade practices, including the Robinson-Patman Act of 1936, as amended, and the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914, as amended; federal, state, and local workplace health and safety laws; various federal and state laws and regulations governing the company’s employment practices, including those related to equal employment opportunity and compensation; various federal, state, and local environmental protection laws; privacy and personal data protection laws; trade laws and regulations, including laws regarding the import or export of the company’s products or ingredients used in its products and tariffs; and various other federal, state, and local statutes and regulations. The company is also required to comply with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act.
The company maintains that the presence of each such substance in its products is subject to an applicable exemption from the warning requirement, or that the product is otherwise in compliance with the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986 (‘Proposition 65’).
The company is also subject to various federal, state, and international laws and regulations related to cybersecurity, privacy, and data protection, including the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, China’s Personal Information Protection Law, and the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (‘CCPA’), which became effective on January 1, 2020, as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act (‘CPRA’), which became effective on January 1, 2023.
History
The Coca-Cola Company was founded in 1886. The company was incorporated in 1919 under the laws of the state of Delaware.
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