My work

An absorbing history of how Coke’s insatiable thirst for natural resources shaped the company and reshaped the globe.

You might think of Coca-Cola as an iconic American brand… and you’d be right. But, it was born in the South. How did Coke’s Atlanta birthplace shape what the soft drink became? And how has Coke shaped the South? It’s a story that includes many surprising twists and turns, from Civil War wounds to temperance movements, racist fears to philanthropy, and small-town soda jerks to Peruvian coca farmers. Tina Antolini speaks with Bart Elmore about these topics and more in this episode of the Southern Foodways Alliance's Gravy podcast.

Olivia Waxman interviews Bart Elmore about his argument that, even as environmentalism has become more mainstream, recycling advocacy efforts have failed in the last 25 years.

Bart Elmore's talk at the Southern Foodways Alliance Fall Symposium about how Citizen Coke is a corn syrup-fueled global phenomenon.

When news broke about the discovery of $56 million worth of cocaine at a Coca-Cola plant in France, the press was all abuzz. But as it turns out, this Cocaine-Cola connection is not entirely new; Coca-Cola has been intimately linked to domestic manufacture of cocaine in the United States for years.

Last week, the Coca-Cola Company announced that it was slimming down. Reeling from a dramatic 25-percent decline in US consumption of sugary soft drinks over the past two decades, a trend in part stimulated by consumer concerns about the link between soft drinks and obesity, Coke decided it was time to trim the fat.

David Butler, VP Innovation & Entrepreneurship at Coca-Cola, and an environmental historian, Bartow Elmore, make the case for and against Coke.

Isabelle Szmigin writes about the not-so-secret formula underpinning a highly profitable global model, and Karen Shook offers an in-depth profile of author Bart Elmore.