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The Coca-Cola formula is locked in a bank vault.

The exact recipe for Coke has been a guarded secret for over 130 years - and is kept inside a giant vault in Atlanta.

2 min read
The Coca-Cola formula is locked in a bank vault.
THE FULL STORY

Coca-Cola was invented in 1886 by a pharmacist named John Pemberton, who originally sold it as a medicine in his Atlanta drugstore. It cost five cents a glass. From the very beginning, the exact recipe was kept a secret to stop rival companies from copying it.

For decades the formula was hidden in a bank vault in Atlanta, Georgia. In 2011 the company moved it to a special new vault in its visitor museum, the World of Coca-Cola. You can stand outside the giant steel door, but you can’t see inside. According to the company, only a tiny number of senior workers have ever known the full recipe.

Plenty of people have tried to guess the formula. Some old notebooks have surfaced online claiming to be the original, and food scientists have analyzed Coke down to the last molecule. The exact mix of “natural flavors” remains a mystery, which is mostly the point - secrets sell soda.

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