Coke Spent $132.8 Million on Health Research

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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Coke Spent $132.8 Million on Health Research

© courtesy of Coca-Cola Co.

Coca-Cola Co. (NYSE: KO) recently bragged that it had spent $132.8 million on health-related research — over a period of six years. At $22 million a year, for a company with revenue of $44.3 billion, it is a drop in the bucket, considering the weight of questions about the health issues surrounding sugary drinks:

We have published updates and amendments to our online, searchable database that clearly outline our support of scientific research, health-related programs and health care professionals from January 1, 2010 through December 31, 2015. We will continue to openly report updates to you every six months to ensure that we are sharing the most accurate and current information available. Here are some items of note:

Our updated total investment in scientific research and partnership activities from January 1, 2010 through December 31, 2015 is $132.8 million.

We are disclosing an additional $15.5 million in grants to support health and well-being partnerships and $490,000 to support scientific research for the disclosure period January 1, 2010 – December 31, 2015. This funding includes support from The Coca-Cola Foundation, Coca-Cola North America and The Coca-Cola Company.
We have removed $1.8 million in incorrect entries and included some entries that date back to 2010-2014. For more information about these updates, please click here.

During this disclosure period, we provided more than $500,000 in grants to organizations in Little Rock, Los Angeles and New York, communities where the beverage industry’s Balance Calories Initiative is focused. This is an initiative to reduce beverage calories per person by 20 percent by 2025. For more information on the Balance Calories Initiative, please click here.

We view this work as foundational to becoming a more helpful and credible partner. We want to – and will – get this right as we work to better serve the communities who have supported us.

A can of Coke costs about $2, depending on where it is purchased. Do the math.
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Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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