That's what the headline says, and the story mentions that several times, but what they're actually doing is stopping local production in favor of importing the beverages. The remodeling is to make the plant a distribution center.
The press release requires translation, as usual. The newspaper provides one.
The statement continued: “The realities of the Liberian market have evolved and become more complex in the last few years. After a recent evaluation of our current business model in the country we recognized that it needed to be reorganized so that it can respond quickly to the evolving needs of our customers more efficiently and sustainably. Despite various other changes applied to date, the current business model remains unsustainable, so the company has decided to take steps to transform the facility into a distribution center to ensure the service to our customers.”
This means the company will no longer be manufacturing the beverage in Liberia but will import drinks for distribution in Liberia
"Since 1949, the bottling company which produces and markets Bonaqua, Schweppes, Burn, Fanta, Sprite, Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola Light, Coca-Cola Zero at its Liberia plant on the Kakata road, has been a fixture."
"the Liberian market is said to be flooded with low quality unregulated soft drinks."
Both the Ministry of Commerce and the Freeport of Monrovia have kept their eyes off the ball by allowing all kinds of beverages including Coca Cola rival, Pepsi and others into the market without duty, thereby allowing importers to price at or below the price of the locally produced product, which also limits the ability to take prices up.
... Priced in local Liberian currency to the consumers, all the ingredients are imported and priced in US dollars, to the company’s detriment.
Duty free? Interesting. That's not the rule.. I'll bet several people got a "small dash."
The Coke Facebook page is 3 years old.
We used to buy Coke in 24-bottle wood cases, returning the empty bottles and the case for their deposits. Several miles of shaking over dirt roads in a hot trunk left the bottles too "trigger-happy" to drink, so we set the crate in the laundry room to cool off and settle down for a day while we used the last from the old crate. There wasn't always room in the refrigerator for a few. The temptation is obvious. When I tried the secret swap, I worried that my sister would notice that the bottle was warm, or that she would pry the cap slowly and be warned, but she was very thirsty and when she popped the cap off the spray hit the ceiling. Literally. (Mom was annoyed for some reason--though I don't think the spray hit her.)
It gives you a warm feeling when plans go just right, doesn't it? I wasn't worried about waste; I didn't like Coke anyway--Sprite was my preference. Or water with lots of ice in it. (We used Katadyn ceramic water filters--there was no chlorine or any other cleansing in the water. When it came time to clean the filters they were foul.)
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