At least in Mexico it is.
A recent report ranked Mexico as the #1 consumer of Coca-Cola products in the world on a per capita basis. The staggering statistic is:
650 eight-ounce bottles per person per year
That's a hell of a lot of Coca-Cola and Coke products (juice, bottled waters).
To be fair they are one of the major employers in Mexico (80,000 jobs) and just announced an investment of $200 million in a new juice bottling plant. This year, the company is planning investments of $700 million in Mexico and $5 billion over the next five years. In their bottled juice division, they are the second largest purchaser of fresh fruit in the country.
Critics have complained that in this era of economic crisis in Mexico, Mexican families would be better served to spend their scarce wages on something other than soda pop. And ecologists worry about the company's massive use of water in their production and bottling....while Mexico is suffering their worst drought in 30 years. In many areas of the country, the local government simply isn't delivering water to homes through the public water supply system--it isn't there to deliver.
