Coca-Cola Quality and Global Food Safety Initiative Recognized Schemes

Carletta Ooton, Vice President and Chief Quality and Product Integrity Officer,
The Coca-Cola Company
Remarks on Coca-Cola Quality and Global Food Safety Initiative Recognized Schemes
Global Food Safety Conference 2011
London
February 16-19, 2011

As prepared for delivery

Good afternoon!

First I would like to start with a bit of celebration. 2011 is a big year for Coca-Cola.

With nothing more complicated than the natural ingredients available in his kitchen in 1886, John Pemberton created the most successful consumer product and brand in history. It was first sold in Jacob's Pharmacy in Atlanta, just a few blocks away from where our global headquarters stands today.

In now, our 125 th year, Coca-Cola still is the same refreshing beverage - but our business is, of course, much larger.

Today, The Coca-Cola Company:

•  Owns more than 500 brands
•  3000 products are produced and distributed through the Coca-Cola system
•  Those brands and products are sold in more than 200 countries. 206 to be exact
•  We produce those 3000 products in more than 1100 manufacturing sites around the world. It is also important to note that we do not produce in a handful of countries and ship to the 206 - those 1100+ manufacturing sites are producing product in almost all 206 countries where we do business.
•  And across those 206 countries, consumers enjoy 1.7 billion servings of our beverages, every day. 300,000 just in the time I've been speaking here on the stage.

Coca-Cola is an amazing business system.

We have the largest distribution system in the world, with more trucks than UPS and FedEx combined. We are the world's largest sparkling beverage company AND the world's largest juice company. We have 13 million vending machines.

And, we have a network that includes our global bottling partners as well as micro-distribution centers countries such as Thailand - employing nearly a million people worldwide.

We have you, our retail partners.

We have you, our suppliers.

We have all of you, consumers of our brands and non-alcoholic ready-to-drink beverages.

You might think that after 125 years, we would be completely happy with what our system has accomplished.

Well, we are thrilled. But we know that our brands bring value to people - the consumers who enjoy them every day; you our business partners, and communities throughout the world. We refresh the world, inspire moments of optimism and happiness; and, we create value and make a positive difference in the world.

That's why we are focused ahead, not on the past. And ahead, we have developed a tremendous set of goals for the next decade.

In fact, in our 2020 Vision, a guiding document developed with in conjunction with our bottlers, we have committed to double our business during the next ten years. Think about that.

Doubling our business means we will go from 1.6 billion servings per day to 3.2 billion servings per day!

It's an amazing goal. But there are nearly a million people standing behind it and who will make it happen.

So what does all of that have to do with Food Safety? With GFSI?

Everything.

Coca-Cola Quality

Because Food Safety is the foundation, the starting point, the basis for Quality. It is one of our seven core values as an organization. And we know that as we achieve the goals of our 2020 Vision, we will do so only while delivering the gold stand of quality that the world expects of us and that we demand of ourselves.

For all of us, Food Safety is a requirement. For us, Coca-Cola Quality and Food Safety is non-negotiable.

It is a passion.

A passion that can be seen and felt. A power derived from bringing emotion and business in equal measure.

Quality is a lever to improve everything. Think about it, I challenge you to name anything we do on any given day that can not be improved.

For everyone here, standards give us discipline to ensure we get things right. But with a passion for Quality and Food Safety, we're hungry to improve.

Quality is a set of eyes and ears that protects our brands and our reputation.

We must operate in ways which ensure sustainability of our business, our communities and our world. As such we will never make a decision that compromises Quality or Food Safety.

EVER.

Quality is physically and emotionally inherent in our products, our brands and our people. It is who we are.

And at Coca-Cola, Quality and Food Safety are not only matters of manufacturing and distribution. We must think across our entire supply chain. As we say in our juice business, from grove to glass.

Food safety is as strong as the weakest link of the food supply chain. That's important to note, as it's very important to us.

Because Food Safety, Product Integrity and Quality are core to our brands and to who we are.

It is not negotiable. Cannot be compromised. Must be rigorously protected. And improved.

How do we do that across every continent, in nearly every country on earth?

Coca-Cola KORE

For us - it starts with KORE. KORE is an acronym (KO - our ticker on the NYSE and RE for requirements). KORE is the foundation for:

•  Our Global Quality & Food Safety Culture
•  Our end-to-end and system oriented approach to Quality & Food Safety
•  Our strong governance system that includes internal & external auditing

Which, of course, leads me to another important component - our commitment to GFSI, its vision, its mission and its objectives.

Global Food Safety Initiative

Why is GFSI so important to us?

•  It provides a comparable approach to auditing and to assessing results.
•  It reduces duplication across geographies.
•  It provides and accounts for continuous improvement of standards.
•  It provides cost efficiency across the entire supply chain
•  It provides confidence across the supply chain.

Ultimately, GFSI provides safer food for all of us.

I do want to emphasize the importance of the GFSI recognized standards across our entire supply chain. With the increasing complexity of our business system, increased external pressures in every region of the world and our commitment and passion for Quality and food safety, adopting the GFSI recognized standards is not an option for us . Likewise, it is not an option for our suppliers.

Every point along the supply chain ultimately impacts the success of the value chain. This is particularly true for Food Safety.

Our approach to ensure consistency within our vast global system is Food Safety System Certification 22000 certified, ISO 9001 certified and governed by KORE. We have mandated this for our plants.

That's why in August of last year, we communicated to all of our suppliers that they must certify to one of the GFSI--benchmarked schemes. No exceptions.

Our biggest retail customers, right here in the room, require them of us, and we require them throughout our supply chain.

At Coca-Cola, GFSI is now part of a system of capabilities that drive performance. Part of that network of people, resources and tools that enable Food Safety. That enable Quality.

It is now part of the Coca-Cola culture of Quality and Food Safety. Part of that passion that our people bring to work every day. A passion for Quality to improve everything.

Thank you.