Coca-Cola
It is claimed that only two persons know the complete formula for Coca-Cola syrup. Company policy forbids them from traveling in the same plane. When one dies, the other is to choose a successor and impart the secret to that person. So secret is Coca-Cola’s formula that the identity of the two initiates is itself a secret. Coca-Cola chairman Roberto Goizueta- a likely candidate because his background is in research and quality control- refused comment when Fortune magazine asked him in 1981 if he knew the formula. The written recipe is in a safe-deposit vault at the Trust Company of Georgia. The vault it’s claimed, can be opened only with the approval of the Coca-Cola board of directors. Clearly the syrup recipe is perceived as the heart and soul of the Coca-Cola Organization. Said the 1981 Coca-Cola annual report, commenting on the Columbia Pictures acquisition, “Programming is to the communications and entertainment businesses what syrup is to the beverage business.”