Coca-Cola formula

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.

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.

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