Secret Formula of Coca-Cola | National Geographic

[Music] six hundred seventy billion dollars that's the kind of business the global non-alcoholic ready to drink beverage industry does every year the largest player in that business is the coca-cola company with a massive worldwide presence we operated over 206 countries that's more countries than the UN the company's best-selling beverage is original trademark coca-cola the planet consumes nearly 800 million servings a day coke says the product reaches 99% of mankind despite its worldwide presence the company itself makes primarily one thing the highly condensed beginnings of the drink known as beverage concentrate but coke won't say exactly where they make the concentrate nor will they allow the modern-day filming of its manufacturing processes the formula for coca-cola may be the most closely guarded secret in the history of American commerce the ingredients are listed but there's one that's purposely vague natural flavors those are things which have come from nature from many different sources of plants vegetables or things like that that's actually the most closely guarded trade secret in the world so we don't actually say what they are coke ships its secret concentrate to over 900 bottling plants all over the world most of them independently owned one of the newest bottling plants is the Baton Rouge coca-cola bottling company in Louisiana Coke has been bottled in Baton Rouge since 1906 but this facility began production in 2009 the factory works 24 hours a day five days a week it can make and package 4.5 million servings a day [Music] the bottlers first job is to transform the concentrate into a finished soft drink by diluting it with water then adding sweetener and carbonation these two tubs of concentrate will make over 135 thousand gallons of coca-cola the people who handle the concentrate are as in the dark about the secret formula as anyone the coke they make has to taste the same as coke made by other bottlers around the world it's a challenge because the butler's provide Coca Cola's main ingredient water the drink is about 90% water water can taste different depending on the source this plant gets its water from on-site wells in the plant they sanitize the water and put it through a nano filtration process that there's no taste and odor carryover from our source the coca-cola company also counts on its bottlers to add coke second main ingredient the sweetener in most of the world the sweetener is sugar but in the United States it's high fructose corn syrup coke says they use the sweetener because it's more readily available in the US market u.s. corn subsidies in tariffs on imported sugar have also made high fructose corn syrup cheaper than sugar they pump the sweetener concentrate and water into a 5,000 gallon tank to create a syrup that's more than 50% sweetener out on the bottling line they dilute that syrup five and a half more times with water then pump in co2 through a closed system to carbonate the beverage now its trademark Coca Cola but the plant has to prove it by testing the first bottles in order to be a bottle for the coca-cola company you have to follow the company's rules and regulations and if they don't they can actually lose their license two of the tests are for co2 levels and sweetness which is measured in a unit called Brix the finished Coca Cola beverage is about 10% sweetener this batch passes the test Billy come in blinds who can ruin

Channel: National Geographic

Views: 2,482,302

Keywords: National Geographic, Ultimate Factories: Coca-Cola, coca-cola video, coke, coca-cola factory, secret formula, sodanational geographic, nat geo, natgeo, animals, wildlife, science, explore, discover, survival, nature, documentary

Id: wMctmMin9vM

Length: 4min 48sec (288 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 09 2011