Firm in Pepsi Deal Used to Make Fake Cola
Tue Jan 13, 9:17 AM ET Add Oddly Enough - Reuters to My Yahoo!
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An Iraqi company that has been selling fake Pepsi for the past 14 years will start manufacturing the genuine soft drink within a few months, its director says.
Sitting in his office at the bottling factory of the Baghdad Soft Drinks Company, Hamid Jassim looked well pleased with his visit to the U.S. headquarters of PepsiCo last week.
In a deal announced Wednesday, Jassim's company was awarded a five-year license as the sole distributor of Pepsi soft drinks in the central region of Iraq (news - web sites). He refused to give financial details but said they had agreed upon a "multimillion-dollar" sum.
"Our market is very promising and it could be one of the best in the world," Jassim said Monday. "The weather gets very hot here, but Iraqis don't drink juices -- they prefer soft drinks."
Baghdad Soft Drinks Co. had been bottling Pepsi for several years when the U.S. firm pulled out of Iraq in 1990 with the Gulf War (news - web sites) looming. Since then, the company has been bottling and distributing non-brand cola in Pepsi bottles imported from countries such as Turkey and Iran.
During years when U.N. sanctions were in force, the company shipped in cola concentrate from Europe and distributed a bootleg version of the global brand drink.
Tue Jan 13, 9:17 AM ET Add Oddly Enough - Reuters to My Yahoo!
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An Iraqi company that has been selling fake Pepsi for the past 14 years will start manufacturing the genuine soft drink within a few months, its director says.
Sitting in his office at the bottling factory of the Baghdad Soft Drinks Company, Hamid Jassim looked well pleased with his visit to the U.S. headquarters of PepsiCo last week.
In a deal announced Wednesday, Jassim's company was awarded a five-year license as the sole distributor of Pepsi soft drinks in the central region of Iraq (news - web sites). He refused to give financial details but said they had agreed upon a "multimillion-dollar" sum.
"Our market is very promising and it could be one of the best in the world," Jassim said Monday. "The weather gets very hot here, but Iraqis don't drink juices -- they prefer soft drinks."
Baghdad Soft Drinks Co. had been bottling Pepsi for several years when the U.S. firm pulled out of Iraq in 1990 with the Gulf War (news - web sites) looming. Since then, the company has been bottling and distributing non-brand cola in Pepsi bottles imported from countries such as Turkey and Iran.
During years when U.N. sanctions were in force, the company shipped in cola concentrate from Europe and distributed a bootleg version of the global brand drink.
