Immediately after the trade embargo between the US and Vietnam was lifted on February 3, 1994, Coca-Cola – a world-famous soft drink brand entered the Vietnamese market. In 1995, Coca-Cola Vietnam’s first factory was inaugurated in Hanoi, with a conveyor production line for reusable glass bottles RGB (Returnable Glass Bottle). From 6 SKUs (product lines) of the factory in Hanoi initially, Coca-Cola Vietnam now supplies about 100 SKUs per year with 11 brands.
Over three decades, Coca-Cola Vietnam has grown strongly with three manufacturing plants located in Hanoi, Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City, and a factory under construction in Long An, expected to have a capacity of 1 billion liters per year upon completion.
According to the company’s announcement, Coca-Cola currently serves 7 market regions through 6 distribution centers and about 800,000 points of sale. Currently, the company creates 4,000 direct jobs. In addition, Coca-Cola also indirectly creates 6 to 8 times more jobs through its supply chain activities. With its efforts to develop human resources, continuously from 2019 to present, the company has been included in the list of “Best Workplaces in Vietnam” by Anphabe.
In the context of the world’s concern for sustainable development, Coca-Cola Vietnam has also proposed and implemented many initiatives, contributing to sustainable development, focusing on the areas of packaging, water management, climate change response and community support. Through the strategy “For a world without waste”, Coca-Cola aims to collect and recycle 100% of the bottles and cans that the company has sold by 2030, and use at least 50% recycled materials in packaging.
Since launching Coca-Cola bottles made from 100% recycled rPET (except for caps and labels) in Vietnam in 2022, Coca-Cola has reduced its use of 2,000 tons of virgin plastic annually.
Coca-Cola Vietnam is one of the founding members of the Packaging Recycling Alliance Vietnam (PRO Vietnam), together with leading companies, recyclers and government agencies to promote the collection and recycling of local packaging, joining hands to build a greener, cleaner Vietnam.
The Coca-Cola Foundation has also worked with WWF Vietnam for 10 years to restore water resources at Tram Chim National Park.
Coca-Cola also actively cooperates with The Ocean Cleanup in Vietnam to deploy the Interceptor river cleaning system on the Can Tho River, to prevent plastic waste from entering the ocean.
In addition to economic development, businesses do not forget their social responsibilities. Joining hands with the whole country to overcome the pandemic, Coca-Cola has contributed more than 16 billion VND to the Vietnam Red Cross Society during the Covid-19 period.
In order to ensure that no one is left behind, the company’s Tet programs over the years have included activities to donate necessities to individuals and families in need. On the most recent Tet holiday – 2024, Coca-Cola Vietnam contributed 4.5 billion VND to the Tet Charity Fund of the Central Committee of the Vietnam Red Cross Society to implement the “Zero-Dong Tet Market” activity, aiming to support 6,000 disadvantaged households in 4 cities of Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, Da Nang and Long An to gather together around the Tet meal.
Inspired by the traditional culture of Tet, in recent years, Coca-Cola has organized Tet parties with many recorded records. This year’s Giap Thin Tet, the “Magical Tet Party” was certified by the World Records Union (WorldKings) as “The event with the largest number of New Year’s greetings sent at the same time by participating families in Vietnam”, with 1,000 greetings sent from 1,000 families, equivalent to about 2,000 individuals attending the event. At the same time, the event also received 5 other Vietnamese and world records.
During its 30 years in Vietnam, Coca-Cola has carried out many activities to inspire consumers, especially Gen Z, to join hands to realize the vision of “For a world without waste”. Notably, in the recent 30th anniversary celebration, Coca-Cola officially launched the second year of the “Recycled plastic bottles, the journey continues”.
Since August 19, plastic bottle collection machines have been present at a series of apartment buildings and universities in Ho Chi Minh City, continuing to spread the message of environmental protection to the community, especially young people. Residents and students can directly send used plastic bottles and cans to these collection machines, accumulating the number of bottles and cans contributed on a specially designed information portal on the Zalo application. With the reward exchange rule of 200 VND for each bottle and can, participants can choose to redeem the prize by topping up on ZaloPay or converting it into a phone card. Every week, prizes are awarded to the “recycling warriors” with the highest total score on the rankings of the residents and students. After being collected, bottles and cans will be processed by Coca-Cola for recycling.
Celebrating three decades of operations in Vietnam, Coca-Cola is “honored to have become an indispensable part of the lives of Vietnamese consumers and will continue its sustainable development activities in Vietnam”.