Global soft drinks giant Coca-Cola is celebrating 80 years since it began making and bottling the famous drink Down Under in 1938. To celebrate, the famous Coca-Cola sign in King’s Cross will be flipped upside down for the first time in the brand’s 132-year history.
The Australian story started out with one famous drink, four trucks and just 10 people, but evolved to include over 165 drinks and thousands of employees across the country.
Some of the stories of everyday Australians who have been part of the journey over the past eight decades will feature in anniversary celebrations.
Coca-Cola Australia’s Christine Black said the brand has become “part of the fabric” of Australian culture and community.
“From the yo-‐yo craze of the 60s and 70s, the Surfabout competitions of the 80s, sponsorship of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, our backing of the NRL and AFL and more recently, our proud support for marriage equality with limited-edition ‘Love’ cans.”
Coca-‐Cola was invented by Dr. John Pemberton in 1886 in Atlanta USA and first began arriving on Aussie shores in the early 1900s. The first Australian-made bottle of the much loved drink rolled off the lines in 1938 in a small building in Waterloo, Sydney. Since that time, Coca-‐Cola has only grown in popularity.
The company has evolved over the years to meet changing consumer tastes with the launch of Fanta in 1955 and Diet Coke in 1983. Australians have also often been the first in the world to taste new flavours such as Coke Ginger, Coke Coffee No Sugar and Coke Orange No Sugar.
Many of the brands produced locally by Coca-Cola have remained popular with Australians including Sprite, Fanta, and Lift. Today Coca-Cola Australia has 165 drinks and 25 brands including Mount Franklin, Pump, Keri juice and Fuze Tea.
Coca-Cola Australia and Coca-Cola Amatil employ close to 4,000 employees directly and a further 10,000 in the production and supply chain. In partnership with Amatil, Coca-Cola products are sold through more than 100,000 retailers with approximately $3.5 billion contributed to the local economy every year.
A new locally produced TV commercial will air this weekend in time for the AFL and NRL grand finals. The logo on left-hand side of the sign will be upside down until the end of October.
