I agree with Alice. There is nothing in Diet Coke that has any value. It is just a liquid form checmical compound used as a delivery system for a drug - caffeine. So does "freshness" matter?

And it seemed to me that the original post implied that there is a conspiracy rooted in the Middle East to sell a product that looks like Diet Coke but that may have been altered from the original formula in some way. Maybe the birth of another post-9/11 urban legend?

This is such a funny thread to wake up to! ><

I have a strange sense of humor anyhow, but this thread has me ROFLMAO at 6 am in the morning!

flanneruk: "Both the tabloids and the papers you read without moving your lips..." Good one! Somehow this woke me up and struck my funny bone

ira: I forgot! Last time I checked my false teeth were still in a glass of water! Whew! Will put them under my pillow every night from now on!

xyz123: Thanks for opening up this thread! It's a great thread - and never mind the rudeness.

Phil: "In general I would...be [more] concerned...about the syrup itself which contains substances not openly declared on the label" The reason why Coke does not declare those substances is something legally called "a trade secret". If you have a "trade secret" you don't have to declare its contents, because - as in the case of Coke - if you declare its contents, then everyone else in the world can make Coke. Trade secrets is one of the stoutest pillars of Western capitalism. Try explaining this to all those "backwards" people in the world who don't understand trade secrets!

No I wasn't implying it was a conspiracy. Everything I said was an observation and no I didn't go to London to check out the coca cola situation.

But in all the responses, rudeness aside, I still don't get why a merchant would want to import coca cola products from the middle east, slap a label on it to hide the strange language when the local coca cola company does plenty of business in the UK.

Yes indeed taste is a personal concept I understand that and I know all the pitfalls of both coke and diet coke. I meant for a serious discussion of why this is happening...and moving these products over long distances perhaps in heated conditions might cause something to break down' especially in the diet sodas the artificial sweeteners are probably a whole lot less stable than natural sweeteners.

Even in the United States, coca cola is bottled by different companies. The holding company, Coca cola itself is located in Atlanta and I believe it ships the syrup to either wholly owned subsidiaries or bottlers under contract. It is possible, as I remember, to see where the soda was bottled by looking at the label.

Somehow I don't think it is a usual procedure to have a convenience store in New York import coca cola products from California.

It is just a case of curiosity although it may not have seemed that way the way I wrote it I wonder if anybody else has noticed this as if you look at a bottle of sprite, the letters on the front are clearly visible.

Please no more harpoon flinging on what was meant to be a light thread; even if I got carried away.

And of course, one wouldn't expect any other country to have the variety of coca cola products that are pushed off on people in the US. Here we have coke, caffeine free coke, cherry coke, vanilla coke, diet coke, caffeine free diet coke, diet cherry coke, diet vanilla coke, diet coke with lemon and finally the brand new diet coke with lime.

I am still waiting for them to come out with diet caffeine free vanilla coke with lime. That would be something to put on the label.

Cheerio

xyz123, I don't know why this strange importing situation exists, but you can bet there is some financial advantage or it wouldn't be happening.

As for the safety of these imported sodas, I'm surprised that no one mentioned the conventional wisdom: When you can't drink the water, drink a beer or a Coke.

Before bottled water became so universally popular, I traveled to many places where bottled soft drinks were the only non-deadly choices. The local stuff tasted like cleaning fluid, but the Coke was a great thirst-quencher. They must be doing something right in their water QC because nobody ever gets sick from it.

When I was on a cruise this past October in the mediterranean the minibar in my cabin was stocked with Coca Cola and Coco Cola light which had Duty Free on the can. I did not pay attention to see what language the ingedients were printed in.

Did you think that a retailer might want import a product that his customers would want? I have not travelled to England but I understand that there are a lot of Middle Eastern immigrants especially in London. Perhaps they want a taste of home? Especially if it is a different taste. There used to be (long, long ago) a pepsi light product sold in Canada that was not artificially sweetened but was just less sugared. I liked it, but apparently not many other people did.

As cheap as the ingredients are in the product I doubt if there is a real economic advantage as you have suggested. If it is coming in from another country there will be duties and taxes on it that the English gov't will insist on collecting.

Here's a thought from my twisted mind. Maybe the stuff was bottled in England for shipment to an Arabic country, hence the "foreign language" and then the bottler had an overstock or the contract was cancelled and so he(the bottler) stuck on a label in english???

John, not twisted at all. In fact, the more I think about it, the more likely your scenario seems. Since there's a sticker pasted over the original language, the products could easily have been meant for export originally.

John...

I don't think that's the answer for 2 reasons...

1. I looked closely at one of the bottles and it clearly said made in Georgia

2. Coca Cola ltd. in the UK does not make coke light....they only make diet coke. And despite what some others seem to think, they are 2 completely different products and do not taste anywhere near the same. The parts of the bottle or can not covered with the sticker are clearly in some language other than English

Well, since we are on the topic, I decided to see if there were any facts. Nothing about the mysterious labels, however, I did come up with the following.

Go to http://www.coca-cola.co.uk/index.html. Click to enter. A pop-up window opens. Click on Diet Coke from menu across the bottom. Click on Facts for window which will give a scrolling list of Diet Coke facts which include:

Why two names for the same product?
"diet Coke" and "Coca-Cola light" are both used for the Coca-Cola Company's one-calorie cola soft drinK. The reason? In countries where the word "diet" doesn't have much local relevance, or has different connotations, we use the name "Coca-Cola light".

How important is the brand to the Coca-Cola Company?
"diet Coke" and "Coca-Cola light" is the third-largest brand in the Coca-Cola Company, and the fourth-largest carbonated soft drink in the world.

Where can you get it?
"diet Coke" and "Coca-Cola light" is sold in 149 countries. In 103, the brand is marketed as "diet Coke". In 46, it is marketed as "Coca-Cola light".

Where is the brand most popular?
Top 5 markets are USA, Great Britain, Germany, Canada, and Brazil.

hi all,

Great Gads! Am I having a nightmare or what....I am gettin really worried that the next thing I will read will be something along the lines that coffee is a bad thing and should be taken off the market...gggrrrr....or chocolate cause cancer or constipation, therefore they need to stop selling it....double grrrrrrr.....

Not sell or want cola?????...okay, I can admit there is no nutritional value to cola...but you know, life is full of empty and invisable things that have no nutritional value...and make the world a better place.(um...like hey air maybe).. Personally I wouldn't want to be the next person in the room with "moi" if "moi" didn't have caffine in the morning....sure I would be a healthy longer living person...but that person standing next to me would die of an early stress related heart attack or gads...maybe even be drivin to the insane asylum.

so, please,,,super pretty please...if you want to keep your body a holy temple of nothing premade...pumped with processors....chemical free...that's fine. I personally am happy for you and hope you are happy person...just don't expect everyone else in the world to line up behind you.

Chemicals such as caffine are my friends. The lack of nutritional value in the soda fizz doesn't bother me a bit...and I want a bumper sticker to make it so....hells bells I still prefer sweet and low, thank you very much...Nutrasweet sucks a big one. (whining) I miss my old TAB! THE ONE TRUE DIET DRINK! THAT KEPT ME GOING! AND DIDN'T TASTE LIKE SWILL!

But seriously...xyz123...I got your point and agree that if they are going to ship in cola from another country they should at least be ethical about it and not cover up the orginal bottler. I probably would still buy it if that is all that is offered, but I would still want to know where it was made.

This thread cracked me up !!
Here in Canada we have always had at least two languages on ALL of our labels (English and French, and this includes stuff coming in from the US - it is required by law).

Many corporations are multinational these days, and their products are made in many different places.
For example - we purchased some bookcases at IKEA a few years ago - and because we have so many books, we needed three, and came home with three identical boxes.
As we were assembling them, we noticed that one of the bookcases was stamped "made in Poland", one in Germany and one in the USA. You will be proud to note that the one that was easiest to assemble because all the parts were aligned with precision was the one made in the USA !!

Coke does taste different in some parts of the world because of the sweeteners used. In the US, it's corn syrup. In Europe, beet sugar - which, to me, gives a much cleaner, crisper taste. I'm not sure what sweetener they use in Asia, but I do know that they use MORE of it, because Asians generally like their drinks to be sweeter (got this from a top manager for Coke in Asia, 25 years ago).


best regards,
Deirdré Straughan

http://www.straughan.com

xyz123 - "strange looking language..." - maybe to you, not to all.

Good for you...it was insensitive to say that. I stand corrected and apologetic.

When home in the U.S. we drink diet caffine free Pepsi. When traveling in the UK or Europe we ADAPT, which hopefully is what most good travelers do. Light Coke seems to be closest, and tastes fine! It has certainly never "hurt" us and is very welcome. It may be a "tad" off from what we are use to, but that is true with a lot or things overseas....and oftentimes things taste even BETTER. I've always thought and still think that Lite Coke and Diet coke are the same thing!!!

XYZ123, I had the same experience while visiting London in November 2003 and in February 2002. I always purchase Diet Coke at Sainsburys or another supermarket chain because I prefer the taste of Diet Coke to Coca Cola Light and yes, there is a difference.

I purchased a half liter bottle in South Kensington at a small snack shop near the underground station. I took one sip and knew that I had been fooled. My bottle was from Egypt and had a sticker over the ingredients. It was clearly labeled Coca Cola Light. I too wondered how it could be economically advantageous to import this product and then sell it for a small profit.

You are not alone in this puzzlement.

It always has amazed me, the passion for one soft drink over another. There must be parties where connoisseurs get together and sample different vintages. You know, the 1998 Georgian Coke Lite was superb.

I remember in my youth, while working in a fabulous fast food establishment, people would storm out when they discovered we carried Coke, not Pepsi. I know, the corporation was filled with tasteless cads, but did they have to hurt our feelings this way.

In the end, it?s inconsequential when, if like me, you are on a budget and are forced to drink the more reasonably priced fine British ales, porters and stouts. Ounce for ounce, they're a better deal and oh so much tastier.

Bill

Borealis:

The situation in Canada is not the situation being discussed here. I think Canadian law requires all labels on food products be in both English and French which are official languages in Canada. But the product is almost certainly being made in Canada and no labels are being placed on it hiding the country of manufacture.

I do agree and remember that Coke sold in Canada, at least when I started visiting the country about 30 years ago, that the coca cola sold in Canada was sweeter than the coca cola sold in the US.

xyz123,
You are correct about one point - Coca-Cola Light and Diet Coke are NOT the same thing. CocaCola Light is made with the same formula as another Coke diet product - Tab, which is still available in several markets in the US.
JoeG