I spent a bit of time working in Tajikistan a while back, and I've never encountered such a vertically integrated country. It's like everyone sits on an organigram that goes right to the top.
There will be a very limited number of importers and distributors, effectively one at the top end. So no real variety in available anything. No real competition. If the system is running RC then we drink RC.
RC is also available where I live (also FSU). It's poor man's coke, Tajikistan is the poorest country in the FSU. The more expensive coke is not going to sell well in a country that at one point was the most remittance dependent in the world.
TJK also has abysmally poor water infrastructure. Coke's normal strategy is to bottle water locally and add syrup. They may have balked at this in TJK.
RC are either braver on this front, or being produced in a neighbouring country and being cheaper overall, more viable to import.
I'm always surprised to find other folks who love RC Cola as much as I do. I live in a weird rural area in the US and it's just always been around. I had no idea that outside of our little bubble that no one seems to know about it, and it's even weirder to find the other spots across the world that have their own little bubble of availability.
It must have been available in the Cleveland area (or maybe western Pennsylvania) sixty years ago, for I know that I have consumed it, just not recently.
I bet that a bit of a search in YouTube would pull up the All in the Family bit in which the son-in-law establishes that he can in fact distinguish RC Cola from Coca-Cola in a blind taste test.
I have fond memories of my grandfather serving RC Cola to me in a small town in Norway 30 years ago. Imported to the town by a small independent shop focusing on cheaper alternatives to the big brands.
Few years ago, IKEA sold RC Cola in their restaurant in Norway, but haven’t seen it recently.
Still pops up once in again through catering services, probably because of a lower price point.
I quite like RC. Also only tasted it in Norway years ago. It's slightly more caramel flavoured than Coke or Pepsi, but not nearly as much as Dr Pepper which is too much for me. The best thing about RC from my perspective is that it is the only cola I have ever tried where it took me a second to taste the difference between their regular and diet version, even a few decades ago. My parents regularly tried to get me to pick the sugar free versions and RC was the only one where I almost had to concede that they tasted the same.
RC Draft Cola was available in the rural US back in the 90s. It used cane sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup. It was creamy and subtly flavored. It seemed hand-crafted but came from a reasonably big distributor. It was a special treat, almost a dessert drink.
Gone now.
Apparently it only exists in New Zealand these days.
> Throughout the 1950s, Coca-Cola executives stressed that its bottlers were “local, independent” businesses; “everywhere you find Coke, you find it is a local enterprise,” Coca-Cola’s president H. B. Nicholson claimed in 1953.46
This strikes me a little like Apple's outsourcing strategy.
To gain access to the Chinese market they have to manufacture and run services locally there. There's no way the CCP would allow them anywhere near their current market share if their products were imported.
Similarly Apple's market share in India has been historically low. The Indian government was pretty hostile to Apple imports too until Apple started partnering with local contract manufacturers.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out over the long term as automation improves. Could there be a future where multi-nationals set up standardised, mostly automated assembly plants in each market just to get preferential treatment from each government? Then just shut up shop and move if they ever turn hostile.
This is also how auto manufacturing works, and is built in to a lot of the defining trade agreements.
Final assembly happens locally. This make up "value add" minimums to avoid tarrifs. It's also good PR. No one care where the aircon is made. They care where the panels are stamped out.
That's what makes GM a Holden, and part of Australian culture... for example.
There also is a practicality to it. Coke's local bottling make their whole supply chain more resilient. Coke are very good at supply chains, generally.
In Czechia, RC Cola is locally produced by Kofola [0]. Kofola itself is a cola-like drink invented in 1959 [1] in communist Czechoslovakia as a better alternative to western Coca Cola (and in Czechia it is still considered much tastier than Coca Cola or Pepsi). But me personally I prefer the Kofola's RC Cola suger-free variant, as it is the least weird tasting sugar-free cola-like drink I ever encountered.
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There will be a very limited number of importers and distributors, effectively one at the top end. So no real variety in available anything. No real competition. If the system is running RC then we drink RC.
RC is also available where I live (also FSU). It's poor man's coke, Tajikistan is the poorest country in the FSU. The more expensive coke is not going to sell well in a country that at one point was the most remittance dependent in the world.
TJK also has abysmally poor water infrastructure. Coke's normal strategy is to bottle water locally and add syrup. They may have balked at this in TJK.
RC are either braver on this front, or being produced in a neighbouring country and being cheaper overall, more viable to import.
I bet that a bit of a search in YouTube would pull up the All in the Family bit in which the son-in-law establishes that he can in fact distinguish RC Cola from Coca-Cola in a blind taste test.
I post because there is something glorious about an outlier in a consumer space that is largely homogenous.
I will look for some RC cola because you posted this!
Few years ago, IKEA sold RC Cola in their restaurant in Norway, but haven’t seen it recently.
Still pops up once in again through catering services, probably because of a lower price point.
Gone now.
Apparently it only exists in New Zealand these days.
That was a trip down memory lane.
This strikes me a little like Apple's outsourcing strategy.
To gain access to the Chinese market they have to manufacture and run services locally there. There's no way the CCP would allow them anywhere near their current market share if their products were imported.
Similarly Apple's market share in India has been historically low. The Indian government was pretty hostile to Apple imports too until Apple started partnering with local contract manufacturers.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out over the long term as automation improves. Could there be a future where multi-nationals set up standardised, mostly automated assembly plants in each market just to get preferential treatment from each government? Then just shut up shop and move if they ever turn hostile.
It's got to be some MBA's wet dream at least.
Final assembly happens locally. This make up "value add" minimums to avoid tarrifs. It's also good PR. No one care where the aircon is made. They care where the panels are stamped out.
That's what makes GM a Holden, and part of Australian culture... for example.
There also is a practicality to it. Coke's local bottling make their whole supply chain more resilient. Coke are very good at supply chains, generally.
[0] https://cs.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RC_Cola
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kofola
Fun fact: When there was a shortage of caffeine they extracted it from coffee roasting soot [1]
For the record I like Kofola more than Coke/Pepsi
[1] https://dvojka.rozhlas.cz/kofola-s-nedostatkem-kofeinu-se-pr...