Willy Wonka and the Soda Factory

Eat local...drink local. A kid enjoying a tasty beverage bottled just a stone's throw away.
Sep. 14, 2010 text and photos by Chad Lebo

Sausages and laws, as they say, should not be seen being made. But as far as I know, they said nothing about sweetened carbonated beverages, so last week the kids took a tour of the Coca-Cola bottling plant in Antananarivo. 

A field trip to a soda bottling plant just days after Dentists Unlimited visited the center. Coincidence?
The kids were treated to seeing how soda is made from start to fizzy finish. They saw the old bottles being washed and new plastic bottles being heated and blasted into shape (as cool as it sounds). They saw ultra modern production line technology and house-high stacks of orange Fanta. They were also witness to alarming quantities of phosphoric acid and a wet man sprinting around red mountains of Coke crates wearing nothing but his underwear. Luckily, the kids were engrossed in a little lecture for that last bit.

Coke, Coke everywhere and not a drop to drink. They were not that mean. Everyone was treated to a bubbly beverage at the end of the tour.
The plant is the birthplace to more than just Coke. They also mix and make Fanta, Bon Bon Anglais, Sprite and several other sugary elixirs. All of which were opened and offered up to the thirsty kids at tour's end. A welcome treat to wrap up a wonderful trip.

Some crates of empty bottles waiting to to washed and reused. Minus, as we learned on the informative tour, the 24 tons  of bottles that get broken each month.

1 comment:

Cynthia said...

This so cool! It's like those TV shows where they show you how things are made. However, I can't recall any episodes including a sodden person dashing about in their nickers.

Did any of the kids get the bubbles up their nose when they drank their fizzy beverages? That happens to me. Hiccups, too. All terribly embarrassing.

No matter, it sounds like it was a great field trip, and a good way in educating kids in what it takes to get their sweet treats onto the epicerie shelves.

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