
Despite the corporation’s official claims of exiting the Russian market, Coca-Cola products remain available in Russia, and its subsidiary, Coca-Cola HBC, continues to generate profits in the country, Bloomberg reports.
“After Vladimir Putin’s troops surged over the Ukrainian border in February 2022, the Coca-Cola Co. was among the first multinationals to pledge it would quit Russia in protest. Aiming to avoid the inevitable headaches of complying with expected Western sanctions on the Kremlin, Coke asked its partners there to pull its cans and bottles from stores, cease deliveries of syrup to soda fountains and stop producing its drinks,” the article states.
Nevertheless, two years later, the characteristic red Coke logo can still be easily found in Russian supermarkets and restaurants. “And taking into account a newcomer called Dobry Cola—sold in cans with a remarkably familiar red tint and a taste few would be able to distinguish from the original—Coke by some measures remains Russia’s leading fizzy drink maker,” journalists write.
Multon Partners, the company bottling Coca-Cola in Russia, is owned by Coca-Cola HBC, a London-based entity in which the American parent company holds a 21% stake. “The profits from selling Coca-Cola in Russia have merely shifted to Coca-Cola HBC, which has taken market share through the success of Dobry,” says Garrett Nelson, an analyst at CFRA Research. The original beverage is imported from neighboring countries such as Georgia and Kazakhstan.
Another multinational corporation, PepsiCo, is continuing to expand its business in Russia. In April, the company opened a new snack factory near Novosibirsk. The project, planned for launch in 2021, cost over 12 billion rubles. Despite announcing the cessation of beverage sales, investment projects, and advertising activities in Russia in March 2022, PepsiCo remains one of the country’s leading producers of dairy products. PepsiCo has been operating in Russia for over 60 years.
The Ukrainian Congress Committee of America (UCCA), Illinois Division, has been conducting a months-long campaign urging global corporations to exit the Russian market. On June 11, the community held another protest at the Consumer Goods Forum in Chicago.
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