The big Coca-Cola secret

By: Chris Mercer - 26 February 2010 15:28

A secret recipe is not the only thing Coca-Cola Co has been hiding behind closed doors over the last few months.

No one is clear just how long Coca-Cola and Coca-Cola Enterprises have been thrashing out yesterday's announced deal.

If you listen to Coca-Cola's CEO, Muhtar Kent, then you would believe that talks have been ongoing prior to rival PepsiCo's deal to acquire control of its own bottlers.

Whatever timescale you pick, it appears that the companies have successfully shrouded the whole thing in secrecy - even from some of their own middle management level employees.

A number of such employees, from the Western European side of CCE, first found out that something was going on at about midday UK time yesterday.

Their immediate reaction, we understand, was to question whether the email was "some kind of joke".