Coke Formula Claim: Man Selling Secret Recipe for $15 Million on eBay (VIDEO)
The Coca Cola company has gone through great lengths to protect a century-old recipe responsible for bringing in billions of dollars a year. But the secret ingredients responsible for making one of the world's favorite beverages may have just been uncovered.
A Georgia man is claiming that he has discovered Coca Cola's well guarded secret hiding in plain sight. The recipe was discovered in a pack of papers that Cliff Kluge obtained through an estate sale. He is now asking $15 million for the recipe on eBay.
"You don't stumble on things like this very often. It's a letter, and a formula, and the processes to make it," Kluge told WXIA TV, speaking about the papers that he recovered from the estate of a famous Georgia chemist. "I think it's a little deeper than having fun; I think it's the recipe for Coca-Cola."
Coca Cola was first introduced in 1886 after being discovered by Atlanta pharmacist John Pemberton who was curious about mixing together certain ingredients. To this day, only two people at a time are permitted to note the special final ingredients that distinguish Coke from its competitors.
The recipe is also locked up in a vault. In 2011, the secret recipe was moved for the first time from Sun Trust Bank to the Coca Cola museum vault in downtown Atlanta, Ga.
Competitors attempted early on to replicate the Coca Cola recipe, prompting the company to develop its unique shaped bottle and the slogan, "The real thing." On the can under the ingredients section, the only additional ingredient is marked as "natural flavorings."
The website, ThisAmericanLife.org, claimed in 2011 that it also found the company's top-secret recipe printed in a 1979 newspaper article near Atlanta. A photograph of the recipe appears on page 28 of the Atlantic Courier Journal.
