The rejected proposal to mass produce Coca-Cola in Poland

Abstract

Władysław Augustyniak i Eryk Rengarten were repatriates from Czechoslovakia who in 1957 decided to return to Poland. Before, they tabled an offer to the Coca-Cola company to establish a public-private enterprise in Poland. The company showed interest in the idea and authorized the originators to negotiate with the Polish government. Taking the lack of foreign currency in Poland into account they proposed to finance the import of essential ingredients by export of bottles to the Coca-Cola to the US. The provincial authorities in Gdansk were delighted by the idea and judged it very positively. They then many times tried to support it and press central authorities to make an ultimate and positive decision. Also a local leading newspaper (“Dziennik Bałtycki”) and some anti-alcoholic organisations took interest and supported the proposal. Unfortunately, the central authorities at the end of 1958 rejected it. The whole episode fits into the atmosphere following the Polish October, when there were increased hopes for the possibility of conducting private business and for better access to the consumer goods. The reactions to this project also present a social rejection of the propaganda image of the Coca-Cola drink. Possible reasons were: a renewed pressure on industrialization of the country at the expense of consumer production development, propaganda from the Stalinist era, state-private character of the proposed enterprise, bad experience of state authorities with private initiatives following the Polish October.