# How would Coca Cola even prevent someone from ripping off their product? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 15, 2010, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-coca-cola-even-prevent-someone-from-ripping-off-their-product/557256 "2010-10-15T16:15:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Candyman74](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ad7895/32.png) [@Candyman74](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Candyman74)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2010, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-coca-cola-even-prevent-someone-from-ripping-off-their-product/557256/21 "2010-10-16T00:46:30Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > What’s to stop someone from simply buying a can of Coke, repackage it, and sell it as something else if the formula’s secret? How would anyone be able to prove they are the same beverage if Coke won’t reveal it’s formula? There’s no advantage to doing so. People buy the brand. If you want to fake it, you’re better off faking the liquid and forging the branding. ---
**Author:** ![MikeG](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mikeg/32/4329_2.png) [@MikeG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeG)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2010, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-coca-cola-even-prevent-someone-from-ripping-off-their-product/557256/22 "2010-10-16T01:36:36Z")
I like Coke (although RC is my favorite cola) but if I could find a generic cola that tasted exactly like Coke , I’d buy it in a heartbeat. I’ve tried loads of them but they always have a weird chemical taste that is just…off, to my palate. ---
**Author:** ![Sleel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/73ab20/32.png) [@Sleel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleel)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2010, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-coca-cola-even-prevent-someone-from-ripping-off-their-product/557256/23 "2010-10-16T02:07:56Z")
There’s nothing really to stop someone from trying to reverse-engineer Coke, but it would cost quite a bit to try, and as others pointed out, the brand is a huge part of the value of the product. As far as Pepsi vs. Coke, Gladwell covered this in Blink, and Snopes has a piece on the New Coke fiasco. In brief, Pepsi did better in sip tests, but fared worse when people drank more than a sip or two. People preferred the sweet and glutamate taste of Pepsi in small portions, but found it cloying and gross when they drank more of it. This is why Classic Coke came back to reclaim the top cola spot; people actually did prefer it to Pepsi in the long run. A related anecdote I can share is that HFCS and cane sugar do taste perceptibly different. When I first came to Japan, they were still using cane sugar. A few years later, the local bottlers turned to other sweeteners like high fructose corn syrup and grape-derived dextrose. Japanese Coke tasted different—and better—than the US Coke I was used to. Now, both are virtually identical. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2010, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-coca-cola-even-prevent-someone-from-ripping-off-their-product/557256/24 "2010-10-16T02:23:05Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > > > Suppose hypothetically, I decide to market Coca-Cola to stupid rich people. I buy regular bottles of Coca-Cola, repackage them in special crystal decanters, and then sell them for twenty dollars a bottle. > > > > Now I’m openly advertising my product as Coca-Cola and I have no contract with the Coca-Cola Corporation but am I doing anything illegal? I bought their product and I’m reselling it at a higher price. Is there a trademark violation in this? > > Under the first sale doctrine, you are allowed to resell goods that you’ve purchased, so long as there is no falsification of the marks. > > However, there is a “repackaging exception” that might require you to use a label to note that Little Nemo has repackaged the goods. And usually the first sale doctrine applies where a reseller is selling that trademarked product among others. Selling only goods with that trademark risks suggesting you are affiliated with or sponsored by Coke, which is a trademark violation. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2010, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-coca-cola-even-prevent-someone-from-ripping-off-their-product/557256/25 "2010-10-16T02:24:29Z")
> [@MikeG](#): > > I like Coke (although RC is my favorite cola) but if I could find a generic cola that tasted exactly like Coke , I’d buy it in a heartbeat. I’ve tried loads of them but they always have a weird chemical taste that is just…off, to my palate. I agree. There are plenty of nice colas, but no cola I’ve tried has tasted identical to Pepsi or Coke. Whatever recipe they have, it’s quite precise and unique. However, I think that KFC’s secret recipe is not that big of a deal. I can get equally good and quite similar tasting fried chicken in a lot of places(even Lee’s chicken is as good, if not better). ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2010, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-coca-cola-even-prevent-someone-from-ripping-off-their-product/557256/26 "2010-10-16T02:45:26Z")
Generally I don’t think any company wants to imitate another product’s flavour precisely. What they want is their own unique flavour that earns a following on its own merits. There’s still a point of pride to be had. ---
**Author:** ![Labdad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/439d5e/32.png) [@Labdad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labdad)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2010, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-coca-cola-even-prevent-someone-from-ripping-off-their-product/557256/27 "2010-10-16T13:02:18Z")
> [@Sleel](#): > > There’s nothing really to stop someone from trying to reverse-engineer Coke, but it would cost quite a bit to try, and as others pointed out, the brand is a huge part of the value of the product. > > As far as Pepsi vs. Coke, Gladwell covered this in Blink…In brief, Pepsi did better in sip tests, but fared worse when people drank more than a sip or two. Moreover, as Gladwell noted in _Blink_: > [@](#): > > Coca-Cola’s error is that they placed too much emphasis on the sip tests without realizing that the entire principle of a blind taste test was ridiculous because **in the real world, no one ever drinks Coca-Cola blindfolded**. (bolding mine) ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2010, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-coca-cola-even-prevent-someone-from-ripping-off-their-product/557256/28 "2010-10-16T16:23:36Z")
> [@Labdad](#): > > > [@Sleel](#): > > > > As far as Pepsi vs. Coke, Gladwell covered this in Blink…In brief, Pepsi did better in sip tests, but fared worse when people drank more than a sip or two. > > Moreover, as Gladwell noted in _Blink_: > > > [@](#): > > > > Coca-Cola’s error is that they placed too much emphasis on the sip tests without realizing that the entire principle of a blind taste test was ridiculous because **in the real world, no one ever drinks Coca-Cola blindfolded**. > > (bolding mine) Chalk it up to the fog of war. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2010, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-coca-cola-even-prevent-someone-from-ripping-off-their-product/557256/29 "2010-10-16T16:27:03Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > Generally I don’t think any company wants to imitate another product’s flavour precisely. What they want is their own unique flavour that earns a following on its own merits. There’s still a point of pride to be had. But if company could exactly copy Coke or Pepsi’s formula, they could then market it as a cheaper, but identical product. This would be great for any company. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2010, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-coca-cola-even-prevent-someone-from-ripping-off-their-product/557256/30 "2010-10-16T17:10:30Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > But if company could exactly copy Coke or Pepsi’s formula, they could then market it as a cheaper, but identical product. > > This would be great for any company. Cheaper? Doesn’t economy of scale come in? Pepsi and Coke can afford to spread costs over a billion units, not a million. Even if you subtract out all the marketing costs, which are considerable, you still find their wholesale costs to be laughably trivial. That’s how they can do two-liter bottles for 99 cents. How could any small firm compete on price and yet keep the same quality? ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2010, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-coca-cola-even-prevent-someone-from-ripping-off-their-product/557256/31 "2010-10-16T17:11:25Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Coke spends hundreds of millions of dollars a year promoting Coke. There are Coke signs in every place colas are sold everywhere in the world. Hundreds of millions of people drink Coke. > > Even so, most people can’t distinguish Coke in a blind taste test. > > Coke’s value is in its marketing and brand recognition. Anybody in the industry who wanted to replicate Coke’s formula could do so. They don’t because that’s not what sells the drinks. Obviously, the same objection holds for merely repackaging Coke. > > The secret formula makes for a nice marketing story, though. A few years ago I took a tour of Coke’s headquarters in Atlanta. They have a multi-story building devoted to Coke though the ages. The thing that struck me was this: in most plant tours the company is proud to show off their innovation or engineering prowess; all Coca-Cola had to show was marketing: all the myriad ways they have used to convince people to drink sweet water. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2010, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-coca-cola-even-prevent-someone-from-ripping-off-their-product/557256/32 "2010-10-16T20:53:40Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > I figure that if beer companies can do it, Coke can do it. Beer companies don’t do it because it’s considered an agricultural product or some such. At any rate, I just about guarantee you that for reasons of cost, mass market American light lager doesn’t have much else in it besides malted barley (likely 6 row), corn or rice (possibly in syrup form), water and hops (no idea what kind). You just can’t brew a beer that light and mild and add anything else. As for your original question, like others have said, you could buy Coke syrup and bottle it as “YogSosoth Cola- The Cola at the Threshold”, and it still wouldn’t matter, because people want branded Coca Cola Classic. ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2010, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-coca-cola-even-prevent-someone-from-ripping-off-their-product/557256/33 "2010-10-16T21:47:13Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > But if company could exactly copy Coke or Pepsi’s formula, they could then market it as a cheaper, but identical product. > > This would be great for any company. Good in theory but in practice, Coke would just deny it was the same formula. How would you prove it? A taste test? Sure it might work, but there’d always be so many people that swear Coke was different from yours. Try it, take two glasses and pour Coke from the same bottle in them and ask blindfolded people. I bet people would taste a difference, even though it obviously doesn’t exist. ---
**Author:** ![WarmNPrickly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d78d45/32.png) [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2010, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-coca-cola-even-prevent-someone-from-ripping-off-their-product/557256/34 "2010-10-16T23:53:45Z")
> [@CookingWithGas](#): > > > [@zeno](#): > > > > It’s unlikely that only two people know the formula because someone has to make the stuff, and two guys isn’t enough to supply the entire world. In any case, any chemist could pull the ingredients apart. > > Knowing what the chemical consituents are doesn’t mean you know how to make it. Imagine trying to make a loaf of bread based only on a list of ingredients. This is really important. It may be oossible to know the exact ingredients and proportions that go into the recipe, but without the process you are still lost. Even with molecular analysis of the components in the final product, you are stuck. In fact, the ultimate molecules are going to include caramelized sugars that current methods can’t possibly characterize precisely. If you don’t know how long it is cooked, what kind of oven, kettle, heat source is used for every flavor the product will be very different. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2010, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-coca-cola-even-prevent-someone-from-ripping-off-their-product/557256/35 "2010-10-17T01:55:22Z")
> [@cwthree](#): > > 1. The company may reveal the overall composition of the product without revealing the specific formula of the product. For the FDA, it’s sufficient to reveal that Coke contains only food-safe ingredients (carbonated water, sugar or other sweeteners already approved for use in food, food coloring already approved for use in food, and miscellaneous "flavorings). This is very different from revealing the formula, that is, the proportions **and processes by which these ingredients are combined.** “…after the goat swallows the sugar, cola and other flavorings, wait 90 minutes and then collect the syrup base via outflow tube…” > [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Cheaper? Doesn’t economy of scale come in? Pepsi and Coke can afford to spread costs over a billion units, not a million. Even if you subtract out all the marketing costs, which are considerable, you still find their wholesale costs to be laughably trivial. That’s how they can do two-liter bottles for 99 cents. How could any small firm compete on price and yet keep the same quality? They’d lose a little on every unit, but make it up in volume. ---
**Author:** ![Grateful-UnDead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ccd318/32.png) [@Grateful-UnDead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grateful-UnDead)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2010, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-coca-cola-even-prevent-someone-from-ripping-off-their-product/557256/36 "2010-10-17T02:59:10Z")
Many years ago one of my clients was a manufacturer of food flavorings. One of their products was faux “Coca Cola” syrup; in blind taste tests against real Coca Cola, it was indistinguishable from the original. You could buy it by the tanker load. Two of their customers for this syrup were, I vaguely remember, K-Mart and Safeways supermarkets. Each made a cola using this syrup and sold it as their house brand. Both bombed in the market, and were eventually taken off the market. This would serve to confirm the above comments regarding the marketing being more important than the actual product. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2010, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-coca-cola-even-prevent-someone-from-ripping-off-their-product/557256/37 "2010-10-17T03:09:48Z")
> [@Grateful-UnDead](#): > > This would serve to confirm the above comments regarding the marketing being more important than the actual product. IIRC Coke spends more on marketing than on production. ---
**Author:** ![falcotron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3ab097/32.png) [@falcotron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/falcotron)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2010, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-coca-cola-even-prevent-someone-from-ripping-off-their-product/557256/38 "2010-10-17T04:01:11Z")
> [@Grateful-UnDead](#): > > Many years ago one of my clients was a manufacturer of food flavorings. > > One of their products was faux “Coca Cola” syrup; in blind taste tests against real Coca Cola, it was indistinguishable from the original. You could buy it by the tanker load. > > Two of their customers for this syrup were, I vaguely remember, K-Mart and Safeways supermarkets. Each made a cola using this syrup and sold it as their house brand. > > Both bombed in the market, and were eventually taken off the market. Any idea when this was? I used to buy Safeway cola because it tasted and smelled almost exactly like Coke. The feel of the carbonation on the mouth was a bit off (more like Pepsi, which I’ve been told is a matter of the size of the bubbles or something), but still, it was good enough, especially since (when Coke wasn’t on sale) it was 40% cheaper. Then, at some point, it changed into something that tasted like over-sweetened RC. Worse, it didn’t change overnight. Sometimes I’d buy some and it would be the “bad” stuff, and then my next purchase, from the same Safeway, would be good again. Anyway, I always assumed (and my father was absolutely sure) that I was just crazy for thinking that Safeway cola had been that good but no longer was. It would be nice to be vindicated. Meanwhile, I recently tried an e-cig flavor called “C-Cola” that tasted nothing like Coke, but identical to Haribo’s gummi coke bottles. So, that must be some generic cola flavor that everyone knows how to make. I’d like to find a soda that tastes like that. ---
**Author:** ![Grateful-UnDead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ccd318/32.png) [@Grateful-UnDead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grateful-UnDead)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2010, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-coca-cola-even-prevent-someone-from-ripping-off-their-product/557256/39 "2010-10-17T05:43:01Z")
> [@falcotron](#): > > > [@Grateful-UnDead](#): > > > > Many years ago one of my clients was a manufacturer of food flavorings. > > > > One of their products was faux “Coca Cola” syrup; in blind taste tests against real Coca Cola, it was indistinguishable from the original. You could buy it by the tanker load. > > > > Two of their customers for this syrup were, I vaguely remember, K-Mart and Safeways supermarkets. Each made a cola using this syrup and sold it as their house brand. > > > > Both bombed in the market, and were eventually taken off the market. > > Any idea when this was? > > I used to buy Safeway cola because it tasted and smelled almost exactly like Coke. The feel of the carbonation on the mouth was a bit off (more like Pepsi, which I’ve been told is a matter of the size of the bubbles or something), but still, it was good enough, especially since (when Coke wasn’t on sale) it was 40% cheaper. > > Then, at some point, it changed into something that tasted like over-sweetened RC. Worse, it didn’t change overnight. Sometimes I’d buy some and it would be the “bad” stuff, and then my next purchase, from the same Safeway, would be good again. > > Anyway, I always assumed (and my father was absolutely sure) that I was just crazy for thinking that Safeway cola had been that good but no longer was. It would be nice to be vindicated. > > Meanwhile, I recently tried an e-cig flavor called “C-Cola” that tasted nothing like Coke, but identical to Haribo’s gummi coke bottles. So, that must be some generic cola flavor that everyone knows how to make. I’d like to find a soda that tastes like that. While I don’t remember exactly, the particular instance I was referring to probably occurred in the late 1980’s or early 1990’s. I haven’t done any business with that particular flavor manufacturer for a decade or more, but they still sell their faux “Coca Cola” by the tanker load to pop bottlers all over the country. The product is branded by the bottlers as required by their customer, and sold as the home brand by dozens of retailers all over the country. There are a dozens of flavor manufacturers all over the world, and they each have faux “Coca Cola” available, along with faux “Pepsi” and numerous variations of these. If a particular flavor manufacturer offers a weekly special for a tanker load of their syrup, the bottlers simply switch over to that supplier, or to a cheaper blend. Hence the variation in taste observed by “Falcotron” above; ie: one week the K-Mart “Coke” may be the real faux “Coca Cola”, the next it could be a cheaper non “Coca Cola” variant. Therefore, the taste would differ from one week to the next; and the home brand retailers don’t really care, since they know that most people are buying it for the cost, not the flavor. Actually, I am quite impressed by what flavor chemists can do. It would curl your hair to know how many of the flavors you enjoy came out of a chemical laboratory. ---
**Author:** ![falcotron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3ab097/32.png) [@falcotron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/falcotron)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2010, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-coca-cola-even-prevent-someone-from-ripping-off-their-product/557256/40 "2010-10-17T07:37:53Z")
> [@Grateful-UnDead](#): > > It would curl your hair to know how many of the flavors you enjoy came out of a chemical laboratory. I always assumed the answer was somewhere on the order of “a lot”, and probably more so every year. Although I know nothing about the business, I’d have to guess that you use the artificial stuff when it’s cheaper, and natural extracts when they’re cheaper (or when they don’t know how to make it artificially). And our knowledge of chemical engineering advances a lot faster than farming techniques, so I’d guess there’s more artificial now than in 2000. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-coca-cola-even-prevent-someone-from-ripping-off-their-product/557256.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-coca-cola-even-prevent-someone-from-ripping-off-their-product/557256.md?page=3)