The new Cola Wars

Jaya Saxena is a Correspondent at Eater.com, writing about things like labor, food culture, and why American potato chips are so boring. Earlier in the month she wrote an interesting and thorough article about the new Cola Wars.

To quote briefly from her article:

Why do you make a better Coca-Cola? Because you want to siphon profits from the multinational corporation toward relief for Palestinians. Aykiz Shah, founder of Salaam Cola, attempted to solve a simple problem for those who want to vote with their dollars, but also love cola. She launched the brand in the U.K. (though the soda is manufactured in Turkey) in November 2023, with the mission of not only providing an alternative cola (as well as a sugar-free cola and a lemon-lime “Yemonade”), but a cola with ethics.

Salaam Cola isn’t the only company trying to make a cola that supports Palestinian causes. Cola Gaza also originates in the U.K., and also donates 10 percent of sales to “charitable projects in Palestine.” Palestine Drinks, based in Sweden but run by Palestinian parent company Safad Food, says it supports the Safad Foundation’s work in Palestine. Communications director Mohamed Kiswani tells Time that it’s sold 16 million cans since launching in March, though it’s unclear how much money toward Palestine that constitutes. “We are not selling drinks,” he says. “We are selling the brand ‘Palestine,’ to get people to talk more about the genocide that is happening.”

Does Palestine need to be a brand for that to happen? It feels bleak that a country and people being subject to such devastation would need to be attached to a product for society to take action, or that money toward refugees and aid needs to be siphoned through the middleman of soda, let alone a middleman at all. But for Maha Daraghma, the point of Salaam Cola is raising awareness of Coca-Cola’s presence in an illegal settlement. “It just brings more consciousness to consumers,” she says, which hopefully has a domino effect. Some may buy Salaam Cola because they’re boycotting Coca-Cola. Others may see the Palestinian flag colors on the can and wonder why the cola brand exists in the first place, and find themselves learning about the boycott for the first time.

The complete article spells out the arguments and the situation in the world of cola in a lot more detail.

Please read it.