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Citizen Coke

The Making of Coca-Cola Capitalism

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Citizen Coke

Written by: Bartow J. Elmore
Narrated by: William Hughes
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About this listen

Coke's insatiable thirst for resources shapes the company and reshapes the globe in this absorbing history.

Coca-Cola's success in building a global empire out of sugary water drew on more than a secret formula and brilliant advertising. The real secret to Coke's success was its strategy, from the beginning, to offload production costs and risks onto suppliers and franchisees. Outsourcing and a trim corporate profile enabled Coke to scale up production of a low-price beverage and realize huge profits.

But the costs shed by Coke have fallen on the public at large. Coke now uses an annual 79 billion gallons of water, an increasingly precious global resource, and its reliance on corn syrup has helped fuel our obesity crisis. Bartow J. Elmore explores Coke through its ingredients, showing how the company secured massive quantities of coca leaf, caffeine, sugar, and other inputs. Citizen Coke became a giant in a world of abundance; in a world of scarcity, it is a strain on resources and all who depend on them.

©2014, 2015 Bartow J. Elmore (P)2014 Blackstone Audio, Inc. Economics Capitalism Business Success Taxation Latin America Africa
All stars
Most relevant
I'm sure there's 2 sides to every story, however, I can't believe the Gov't support they were given time and time again. I'm exaggerating, but they're right up there with oil and pharmaceuticals.

interesting history

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A very good retelling of how shrewd and clever Coke was to become #1 and the ramifications of that achievement on the environment and people that support it. Bravo narrating too!

A very interesting history of Coke.

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Love this book, it's extremely educational and everyone needs to listen to this and the content.

A must have in your library

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C'est vraiment toute une histoire cette boisson et cette entreprise.

Ce livre va vraiment loin dans chaque détails de cette entreprise, sa création, son développement etc

C'est vraiment intéressant. Je recommande fortement à chaque personne qui veut comprendre plus l'histoire de la compagnie. Chaque actionnaire devrait écouter ce livre.

Il y a tellement de choses qu'on ne sait pas qui est décrit dans cette encyclopédie. Ce n'est pas une encyclopédie mais il y a tellement de détails que c'est le meilleur terme que je pouvais trouver en ce moment.

L'auteur n'a vraiment pas ménager sur la recherche. Wow!

Livre révélateur sur Coca-Cola

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Glad I stuck it out... but this wasn't a riveting read (or listen).
This definitely wasn't what I expected. Many years ago I read about the debacle when Coke changed its formula, which I found quite fascinating, but the marketing implications of this were barely mentioned in this book.
This was more like a text book, documenting the original formula, all the sugar, cocaine (yes, its true), caffeine and water wars and challenges, distribution, licensing and packaging. I faded in and out, but there were occasional bright spots, such as the interesting effort to get a cold Coke in the hands of every soldier, every day, around the world.
I found the end depressing, but informative. Would we have all the world water shortages and heaps of plastic and aluminum waste, and even recycling, if this magic black potion was never invented?
I don't know the answer, but it made me look at the Diet Coke can next to me with new eyes.
Don't read this if you're looking for marketing or amusement, but I recommend it if you are studying or working in purchasing, manufacturing and distribution. Or need your eyes opened wider than a cold Coke will do on a hot day.

Glad I stuck it out...

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While there are a ton great points and reasons to fault Coca Cola, you can't take anything serious due to this book having such a ridiculous view on everything. This feels like it was written as an angry letter to Coke, instead of offering valuable information without pushing his opinion.

The first portion speaks to how terrible Coke was for franchising out their bottling services, pushing the narrative that it was wrong to push those start-up costs to American bottling plants, all while quickly mentioning that those same bottling companies were profiting millions of dollars.

He somehow manages to blame Coke for the US government developing water treatment plants made for both public and private use (developed before Coke was a big company). The second half of the book speaks to Coke's overuse of water sources in 3rd world countries (which most people would align was a terrible thing for Coke to do), but the author is way too opinionated, which removes all credibility to chapters offering actual value.

Frustrating Read

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