Speeches

Remarks at the Coca-Cola Flavor Manufacturing Groundbreaking

Muhtar Kent, President and Chief Executive Officer, The Coca-Cola Company
Wexford, Ireland
November 30, 2008

As prepared for delivery

Thank you, Irial (Finan), and good afternoon, everyone. Prime Minister Cowen... Mayor Howlin... distinguished guests...

It's truly a privilege for us to share this groundbreaking with our great friends and partners who represent the very best of Irish business, government and civil society.

We could not be more excited about our $300 million (U.S.) dollar investment here in Wexford. When completed, our new flavor manufacturing and innovation center will create 60 new jobs and more than 100 jobs over the next five years. Many more jobs will also be created indirectly as a result of this investment.

We see this as the beginning of a new era and a new chapter in our partnership with the Republic of Ireland that goes back more than half a century.

It was on a beautiful spring morning in 1952 when Munster Bottlers of Cork began producing the first bottles of Coca-Cola for the Irish market.

Fifty-six years later, we find ourselves firmly embedded in Irish society, from the 20 different beverage brands we serve, to the thousands of jobs our system and supply chain create here in Ireland.

Ireland's influence across the Coca-Cola system has been profound, to say the least. We have taken many of the best practices exhibited by our operations here over the years and applied them to our business worldwide. To this day, the innovative spirit found in Ireland is an invaluable source of global macro-economic growth.

Your great nation has always been a wonderful source of global talent for our company and our system. Your sons and daughters have not only run successful operations here in their homeland but they've helped us achieve success through their inspired leadership in market after market worldwide and at the highest levels of our company.

Irial Finan is a wonderful example of that tradition living on today.

And of course, our good friend Don Keough, American by birth, is as Irish as they come as he now shares dual citizenship. No one person has played a bigger role in strengthening the ties between Coca-Cola and Ireland over the years than Don, whom you'll be hearing from in a few minutes. I know this must be an especially gratifying day for Don -- to see such an important facility being built here in the beautiful county of his ancestors.

When construction is complete on those 41 acres in the IDA Wexford Business & Technology Park, what Don and I and all of us are going to see is a state-of-the-art facility that's also a metaphor of sorts for the future of Ireland and Coca-Cola.

Today, we live in a world that is full of paradox. As our global society becomes more integrated and nourished by trade and cross-cultural exchange -- as global lifestyles and tastes truly emerge -- we're also seeing an equally powerful re-assertion of local values, traditions and identities. I experience it every day in my travels around the world.

This powerful trend is also reflected in our portfolio -- it's why the vast majority of the 2,400 beverages we produce are tailored to the local tastes and traditions of the 200-plus nations we serve.

And it's why our new flavor-manufacturing and innovation facility will play such a critical role in the future of our business as we innovate to meet the demands and tastes of diverse consumers around the world. These consumers will be more powerful than ever before.

In fact, over the next decade, we're going to see an unprecedented growth of middle class consumers worldwide. One billion people from all corners of the world will rise from poverty and enter the middle class by the year 2020 alone. These new middle class consumers will aspire for many of the same things we do -- including new and better quality food and beverages.

We're investing today -- in facilities like the one here in Wexford -- to satisfy the needs and aspirations of a growing and thirsty world.

This great nation -- the Celtic Tiger -- also stands to benefit greatly from this paradoxical world. Despite the troubling global financial crisis we find ourselves in, I truly believe we will all emerge from this challenge stronger than when we first entered into it.

I applaud the strong leadership shown by Prime Minister Cowen and his administration in dealing with this crisis. The world will get through this, and Ireland and its culture of innovation and trade will help lead the way.

It was the great James Joyce who once said "If Ireland is to become a new Ireland is must first become European."

Ireland certainly has leapfrogged Mr. Joyce's ambitions. This great nation today is not only European, it is quintessentially global. Ireland's open arms to the world have made it a bastion of innovation and foreign investment.

The Irish work ethic, education system and pro-business environment are also why you've enjoyed the strongest economic growth in Western Europe over the past 15 years, and why per-capita GDP is among the highest in the world -- larger than even the United States.

These are not the kinds of things that happen to provincial and insular societies.

At the same time, as Ireland welcomes the world, she also holds dear to her many wonderful traditions and customs -- none more celebrated or revered around the world than your extraordinary hospitality.

We at Coca-Cola have always felt at home here, and we couldn't be more proud today to call Ireland home to our new flavor manufacturing and innovation center.

Thank you all for your tremendous support and encouragement.

We look forward to even greater days ahead for Coca-Cola and Ireland.

Thank you.