Coca-Cola Enterprises

Discovered by Dr. John Pemberton of Atlanta, Georgia in 1886, the world’s most ubiquitous soft drink product, Coca-Cola, was introduced to the world. To date, The Coca-Cola Company has nearly 400 brands of beverages and has a presence in over 200 countries. As early as 1889, The Coca Cola Company started a franchised distribution system whereby it produced the syrup concentrate for its beverages, which would in turn be sold to various bottlers around the world who hold an exclusive territory.

From an early point, the question of bottling arose; and with visionaries foreseeing the great future of bottling, Joseph Biedenharn was the first to have some form of bottling for the popular drink. In 1894, he installed bottling machinery at his store in order to deal with the growing demand for the beverage. He used this machinery to sell to farms and lumber camps in his Mississippi area, and was the very first bottler for Coca-Cola.

It was not until 1899 when large scale bottling became possible in North America. Mr. Benjamin Thomas and Joseph Whitehead, both from Chattanooga, Tennessee secured the exclusive rights to bottle and sell Coca-Cola in practically the entire United States from Mr. Asa Candler, who had sole ownership of Coca-Cola after buying interest from Dr. Pemberton as well as other investors; concentrating mainly on Coca-Cola sales and marketing, Candler left the bottling to Benjamin Thomas and Joseph Whitehead.

The first bottling plant was opened in Chattanooga in 1899 with a second plant being opened in Atlanta in 1900. Soon realizing that they could not handle the bottling operations of Coca-Cola due to such high demand, Thomas, Whitehead and John Lupton, a third bottler who joined them after the exclusive bottling rights had been passed on to them, looked to other avenues, which resulted in outside capital. They worked with other individuals who were defined geographical areas in the United States, so as to have bottling operations that would meet the demand of consumers in the market.