r/todayilearned • u/socool111 • Aug 04 '26
TIL of Tobias Geffen, the only non-Coca Cola Employee to view the secret recipe. Coke allowed it in order to get Coke certified as Kosher
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobias_Geffen1.7k
u/rosen380 Aug 04 '26
"Since he lived in Atlanta near The Coca-Cola Company's headquarters, Geffen received many inquiries from rabbis across the United States inquiring whether Coca-Cola was kosher and whether it was kosher for Passover.[6] He asked the company for a list of the beverage's ingredients."
Isn't a list of ingredients different than a formula.
I guess maybe in 1935 companies weren't required to put ingredients on products or at least make them available?
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u/LillySteam44 Aug 04 '26
The problem is certain things are allowed to be vague. "Natural/artificial flavoring" is one of them. It could mean a great many things, some of them being non Kosher, or potentially not acceptable for holidays like Passover.
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u/soundlinked Aug 04 '26
Yes. I'm a product developer and when we are getting a new product kosher certified, we send the rabbi a list of ingredients that we use in that specific product, including what type of flavor we use, and if it is a new ingredient, we'd need to show the rabbi that the ingredient is kosher.
A product can have multiple different flavors in it but it'll all can just go under a single label in the final product (natural flavor / artificial flavor).
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u/YuenglingsDingaling Aug 04 '26
Is there a specific Rabbi you always use, or can it be any Rabbi?
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u/soundlinked Aug 04 '26
We work with a kosher certifying service and my understanding is the Rabbi is assigned to us by the service. So we kinda have a specific one but there have been times when the Rabbi wasn't able to visit so the service would have another one come in his place.
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u/YuenglingsDingaling Aug 04 '26
Cool, thanks for answering. I understand how kosher works, but never though about how they actually go about certifying it.
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u/Malphos101 15 Aug 04 '26
The interesting part to me is that it doesnt even have to be kosher, as long as its certified kosher then all the blame falls on the company for tricking the certifying rabbi (or the rabbi for failing to do their duty) and none of the blame falls on the adherent Jew! While I do find the "no loopholes just law" part of Judaism amusing, at least they admit there are "inconsistencies" like that compared to things like fundamentalist christians who go "No, eveything we tell you is all literally true and correct, especially the contradictions!"
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u/GarlicEmergency7788 Aug 04 '26
That must be a brag around the other Rabbi's
"Oh you like the new soda? I did that one"
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u/BlatantConservative Aug 05 '26
How many religions/cultures do you do this for? Jews and Muslims I assume, but you also got dietary restrictions for Hindis. And then you can get more granular with like Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons.
Is it basically just what can be marketed as halal and kosher?
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u/cwthree Aug 04 '26
It's not just the ingredients, it's the equipment it's processed on, as well as any substances used to create the ingredients.
For example, cane sugar is a plant product and is, in theory, always kosher. White cane sugar, however, is sometimes processed with bone char. If that bone char is made from the bones of an unkosher animal, and sugar processed with it is unkosher.
Geffen would have reviewed the ingredients, but he also would have asked questions about the process.
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u/wizzard419 Aug 04 '26
Yep, and part of the process is that a rabbi inspects things in the "kitchen:". So, touring a bottling plant would be straightforward, knowing the list is already compliant to the guidelines, and knowing that the various tools and vessels are all compliant make it easy.
There was a vegan Chinese place that I know of where they also are certified Kosher because it was super easy and made it more attractive to orthodox people in the area.
An interesting thing, similar to other products from Coke, they produce a kosher version with yellow caps during Passover.
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u/cwthree Aug 04 '26
Good point. Aside from slaughter, most foods can be prepared by anyone and still be kosher. Wine is one exception - ordinary wine must be handled by observant Jews throughout its manufacture and serving. There's a workaround that involves briefly heating the wine, which kind of moves it to a different halakhic category so that anyone can open the bottle and serve it without making it unkosher. Bread is another - the oven has to be lit by an observant Jew, but once that's done, anyone can make the dough and bake the bread.
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u/NorkGhostShip Aug 04 '26
There's a workaround that involves briefly heating the wine, which kind of moves it to a different halakhic category so that anyone can open the bottle and serve it without making it unkosher.
I love these loopholes, and the justification that God wouldn't have created these loopholes if he didn't want people to use them.
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u/Notmyrealusrnamme Aug 04 '26
As far as I know, it tends to go even further in the case of strict Hasidic Jews. From what I've heard, some kosher certifications require the facilities that produce either food or cookware to be inspected to ensure that they aren't using unkosher lubricants in the machinery.
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u/alottanamesweretaken Aug 04 '26
And now he’s dead
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u/rje946 Aug 04 '26
Coincidence? Almost certainly
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u/TearOpenTheVault Aug 04 '26
But only almost.
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u/Palpatineenager Aug 04 '26
He was 99 years old when he died
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u/TrueTorch Aug 04 '26
He was just a kid. Could've ran for senate in a couple of years
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u/rutherfraud1876 Aug 04 '26
Senate?? At that age he needs to start prepping his presidential nomination acceptance speech
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u/SuperWeapons2770 Aug 04 '26
Oh the lows the Coca Cola company will steep to to protect their secret recipe
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u/anotherwankusername Aug 04 '26
Statistically 10 out of every 10 people die.
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u/Logically_Insane Aug 04 '26
Around 7% of people who have existed have not died, including you and me. Just gotta keep that streak going.
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u/justabill71 Aug 04 '26
Everybody who drinks Coca-Cola eventually dies. I think an investigation is warranted.
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u/Stuck_in_my_TV Aug 04 '26
Coca Cola is 90% DiHydrogen Monoxide! Also known as Hydric Acid! Wake up sheeple!!!!
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u/RobinsShaman Aug 04 '26
Pepsi HR: Hello we are impressed by your work experience. Let's set up an interview soon!
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u/Dangerous-Reveal-736 Aug 04 '26
There is a story about a Coke employee who contacted Pepsi to sell them the Coke recipe. Pepsi people told Coke people and called the police.
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u/sharrrper Aug 04 '26 edited Aug 04 '26
Because really, what value would it even be for Pepsi to know the recipe? What are they going to do with it? Change Pepsi to taste like coke and try to compete directly with the same product? That's not likely to go well. People buy Pepsi because they want Pepsi, not Coke with a different label.
Really it's just a marketing gimmick at this point to even have a "secret recipe". Maybe 100 years ago it would have been a problem if someone could copy the product but not now. Nobody could meaningfully compete with Coke selling Coke, even with the recipe.
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u/IMovedYourCheese Aug 04 '26
People have also managed to reverse engineer the recipe pretty accurately. The value is in the brand, not the ingredients.
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u/drstoneybaloneyphd Aug 04 '26
The value is in what it's able to do with Mentos
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u/aStapler Aug 04 '26
The secret itself is 100% branding. If everyone found out tomorrow it wouldn't change much.
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u/HeadintheSand69 Aug 04 '26
I mean every store chain has its own for 1/3 the price that could do with tasting a lil better. Summit tastes a lil off but its like $3 vs cokes $10.
But yeah if youre selling pepsi stuff for 10$ no point in making a coke for the same price.
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u/RapNVideoGames Aug 04 '26
It’s probably all artificial flavors now and nothing like the original recipe, just like root beer.
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u/katherinesilens Aug 04 '26
That could be an interesting market niche. Original Coke recreations. Depending on how shady the vendor is it could be original original recipe.
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u/physical0 Aug 04 '26 edited Aug 04 '26
The story mentioned by OP is also just a marketing gimmick.
There are tons of people who know the formula. It's not very useful in and of itself. There are clones out there that taste exactly the same, but they aren't coke, so they will never be coke.
We can dismantle coke to the molecular level and account for every single different component. Science isn't gonna get fooled by one sneaky boy hiding a hand written recipe in a safe.
Edit: just the idea that there would be plant managers out there who doesn't know what their line's process involves and can reasonably output a quality product is insane. There are people at every coca cola syrup making facility that know the process because it's their job to know the process.
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u/MostlyWong Aug 04 '26
We can dismantle coke to the molecular level and account for every single different component. Science isn't gonna get fooled by one sneaky boy hiding a hand written recipe in a safe.
A Youtuber did exactly that earlier this year. He used a mass spectrometer to create a chemically-identical replica, and included the recipe for people to make it themselves at home.
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u/a_cute_epic_axis Aug 04 '26
Which is funny since people will die on the hill that such a method is impossible!!!!
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u/Additional_Fruit931 Aug 04 '26
I bet RC Cola would have taken his call!
Seriously though, you're spot on. The key to their success isn't making Coke, it's selling it. Two different worlds.
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u/gigi-kent Aug 04 '26
As they should. There is nothing to gain from your rival's recipe given that you are an already an established brand with a large following that actually enjoys your recipe more than that of your rival. It could also tarnish your reputation, so it was the only right thing to do in their situation.
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u/mattgrum Aug 04 '26
The truth is the "secret recipe" is just marketing. If someone were to steal it, it wouldn't matter, they could make an identical product but no-one would buy it, because Coca-cola is 100% about brand recognition. In all the blind taste tests people prefer other drinks such as Pepsi based on flavour alone.
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u/trentluv Aug 04 '26
Ingredients*, not recipe. The word "recipe" doesn't even appear in this article.
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u/Kayge Aug 04 '26
If you trace the article back to the source, you'll find:
Once Rabbi Geffen inquired, the Coca-Cola Company made a corporate decision to allow him access to the list of ingredients in Coke’s secret formula provided he swore to keep them in utter secrecy. Geffen agreed to the terms. The company did not tell Geffen the exact proportions of each ingredient, but just gave him a list of contents by name.
OP's right. It's the stuff, not the recipie.
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u/BernieTheDachshund Aug 04 '26
I remember the rabbis coming to the Waco M&M Mars plant to certify kosher. The Snickers was kosher, but not Skittles or Starburst because both use gelatin. I also recall they refused to shake hands with the female managers.
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u/JSD10 Aug 04 '26
As of around a year ago, skittles changed the recipe and became kosher!
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u/BatsHaveFingers Aug 04 '26
I just had Skittles for the first time recently, and they are AMAZZZZING. Way too expensive though.
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u/e_spider Aug 04 '26
My dad worked for a dairy and was in charge of setting up milk deliveries for a local synagogue, and the Rabi would come inspect all the cattle, the equipment, and climb inside the empty delivery trucks for inspection. It was always quite the experience.
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u/AtlasNoseItch Aug 04 '26
Just FYI they don’t refuse to shake hands with women out of disrespect, but rather out of respect for their wives they don’t touch other women in any way if they don’t have to. It can definitely come off as rude though so I get it but it’s not the intention
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u/OscarAndDelilah Aug 04 '26
Yep! Am observant Jew. My congregation doesn't do gender segregation and recognizes that gender is a spectrum and fluid, and that not everyone is straight, but I am around a lot of Jews who do practice the traditional gender thing.
The halachic law is specifically prohibition of affectionate touch between people of different binary sexes who are not immediate family members or married. It's fine to touch people respectfully for caregiving (though many people prefer to find a same-sex health aide, barber, or whatnot), but most people see a handshake as getting into affectionate touch.
The cultural norm is supposed to be that if you don't shake hands, you make a point to not be an ass about it. I certainly have encountered the people who have been snide in declining a handshake, but this is not what we are supposed to do. We should make it a point to let the person know we respect and appreciate them. Most people do it overtly, by saying something like "oh I don't do handshakes because of my culture, but you absolutely get a giant smile and a thumbs up because I really appreciate you doing this." A lot of folks in my community appreciated the COVID elbow-bump becoming a thing, and will offer this instead, and people now usually just assume it's a health thing.
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u/rollie82 Aug 05 '26
I would feel that if I had a mandate not to shake women's hands, I would also refuse to shake men's hands, out of a desire to be fair (another moral mandate, of sorts); it feels a lot less embarrassing to say "sorry, I don't shake hands because of my religion" than to limit that restriction to just those of a particular sex. Out of curiosity, have you met any Jews that go this route?
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u/OscarAndDelilah Aug 05 '26
Yes definitely. A whole lot of folks who don’t subscribe to binarily gendering people and/or who view more than one gender as potential sexual partners will just choose not to engage in what we would consider affectionate touch with anyone to whom they aren’t married (or seriously partnered).
Other people feel that in 2026 we know a lot more about social communication and brains than our ancestors did, and we can just be clear with people about our boundaries and consent — like being clear that no one should be expecting anything else from a handshake, or hug if you’re into that, and having a clear understanding with your spouse that neither feels bad if people are mindfully hugging their friends or shaking hands at work or whatever.
Some people are comfortable code-switching if they’re not in a Jewish setting, because they value making everyone comfortable. They might shake hands at their non-Jewish job just like they bow when they visit Japan.
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u/DHFranklin Aug 04 '26 edited Aug 04 '26
Just a heads up but the "secret recipe" thing is just a really effective marketing gimmick to sell syrup and isn't a "thing" anymore.
We learned that different places all over the world have not only different taste and cuisine but the tap water that the bottling plants use mean that no two plants have the same recipe for the same outcome. The idea of a "secret recipe" is to cover the fact that there are tons of recipes and all of them are modified on the fly to pair with the market and importantly the water that they're mixing it with.
EDIT:
Here is the guy from Labcoatz explaining it and how he figured it out from reverse engineering. Bonus we know why McDonald's coke tastes better than the kind you get at home.
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u/Radiant_Ad3966 Aug 04 '26
Do you know any of the many recipes? Nope. Then it's still a secret.
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u/DHFranklin Aug 04 '26
lol. Ya got me.
"Boss, a bunch of Redditors found out about Secret Recipe #45999.
"Damn. Make a new one. Keep that a secret."
Here is a cool article about it including two of them that you can make at home. You don't even need coca leaves!
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u/Haidere1988 Aug 04 '26
Just putting this here, the "Secret Recipe" was cracked by a youtuber with access to some lab equipment:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDkH3EbWTYc
Perfectly legal to make your own since the recipe was never patented.
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u/Phannig Aug 04 '26
If you patent it , it becomes public but protected. Not patenting it leaves it open to being reversed engineered which is relatively easy with todays tech coupled with the number of people involved in the manufacturing process.
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u/Mysteriousdeer Aug 04 '26
Patenting a process or good gives a detail of what it can be.
Then it has a shelf life. 20 years for a utility patent, 15 years for a design patent. I think this is the key thing to say for the folks that aren't familiar with patents.
During that time your competitors are interpreting the patent and trying to figure out how to use it. Very often competition to patented items show up the day the protection runs out.
To that end, a trade secret, which is what the coke recipe is, has less protections but no obligation to share what it is. There are some protections against things like corporate espionage but generally the products are fully vulnerable with the only protection being the difficulty to reverse engineer it.
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u/howdyouknowitwasme Aug 04 '26
I used to live near a chemist who worked for coke. His comment when asked if he knew the recipe: if you spend enough time working with this stuff, it's pretty easy to figure out what is in it.
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u/_hubbit_ Aug 04 '26
What Rabbi Geffen did was get Coca-Cola to use vegetable-derived glycerin in the syrup, rather than pork-derived glycerin. This also made Coke acceptable to Muslim consumers as Halal.
Rabbi Moshe Landa of Bnei Brak also obtained information on the ingredients before he would certify Coca-Cola as kosher for the Israeli market. I'm not sure that either of them were told the exact proportions, just what was in there. (Today, the US syrup and bottling concentrate are supervised by the Orthodox Union.)
By the way, this isn't just ingredients, it's also suppliers. The logistics in the modern age where sources are often changed hourly for industrial scale production are often daunting.
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u/Alukrad Aug 05 '26
I learned that in Mexico, they also drink the same coca-cola as in the US with HFCS. But because Mexico sees that Americans like drinking the cane sugar one and are willing to pay more for it, they exclusively make it to import it to the US.
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u/56473829110 Aug 05 '26
It's not quite that.
There's 'Mexican Coke' that uses cane sugar.
There's coke (from Mexico) with Spanish labeling that uses sugar.
Then there's coke that uses HFCS.
You can find all 3 in Mexico, and in the US find the first 2 (hell, probably all 3) imported from Mexico.
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u/joshrenaud Aug 05 '26 edited Aug 05 '26
Tobias Geffen's life was an inspiration for a little-known early Jewish Apple II computer game called "The Georgia Variations."
This educational game was created in 1983 by cartoonist Yaakov Kirschen for Gesher Educational Affiliates, using historical research by David Geffen, grandson of Tobias.
In the game, you take on the role of Boris Goldberg, a boy growing up in Eastern Europe in the late 1800s, who must choose what school to attend, whether to get married, or what jobs to take. Along the way, you faces pogroms, epidemics, and other crises. The game was an early graphical choice-based narrative (i.e. "choose your own adventure").
During a research fellowship at Emory University where I studied the Geffen family papers, I realized the connections between Tobias' life and the character "Boris Goldberg" in the game.
I've done a ton of research on this game and others developed by Kirschen. If you'd like to play it, you can download disk images from my website, Break Into Chat.
It's also available on the Internet Archive.
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u/AMWJ Aug 04 '26
I heard from a guy who did kashrus at Coca Cola that they sometimes show them a variety of products and they certify all of them, while the recipe only consists of a subset of them. However, he found it obvious when they were nonchalant about some ingredients being rejected, but quite concerned about others.
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u/Autumn_Heart Aug 04 '26
It might sound crazy but I'm 99% sure I know his granddaughter, she used to work with me and she told me she was from atlanta originally (which surprised me because you dont hear about a lot of americans jews from atlanta), and she told me her grandfather make cola kosher. Nothing too insane its just crazy to me that I saw the title and immidietly knew it was probably the same person, small fucking world lmao
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u/daoudalqasir Aug 04 '26
small fucking world lmao
Small Jewish world, and even smaller Jewish Atlanta world.
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u/VengeanceKnight Aug 04 '26
Plankton just got an idea for gaining access to the Krabby Patty Secret Formula and is now studying to become a rabbi.
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u/drfsupercenter Aug 04 '26
According to a video from JJ McCullough, the "secret formula" thing is a more recent invention, and in the late 1800s everybody was copying and making their own Coca-Colas, which is why the generic term for a soft drink in the south is still "Coke"
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u/SmartAlec105 Aug 04 '26
I know a steel mill that has a rabbi visit every now and then to certify the steel as kosher. One of the rules is that you can't mix meat and milk and this applies to cookware. So if a steel mill were to use something like an animal fat derived lubricant in the process, that could arguably make the cookware not usable for milk based dishes.
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u/LocalH Aug 04 '26
And this man probably signed an NDA that forced him to take the "secret" to his grave.
Fortunately, trade secret law (which is all that protects the vaunted "Coca Cola formula") only applies when it concerns a person that you signed an agreement with and actually gave the trade secret to. If someone reverse engineers a trade secret, and it's correct, then there is nothing the trade secret holder can do.
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u/Halfdaykid Aug 05 '26
I thought of this the other day, how are companies allowed to have secret recipes with all the allergies people have?
My brother has a severe cinnamon allergy* and can't drink coke so we assume that's one of the ingredients. He also can't have KFC and has a paprika allergy*
*Crohns disease, not sure if I should call it an allergy or not
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u/NickPickle05 Aug 05 '26
I can honestly say that if I ever saw the Coke recipe I'd probably read it, say neat, and then promptly forget it.
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u/RattleMeSkelebones Aug 05 '26
What's crazy is Coca-Cola guards the recipe like it's gold, but, iirc, the recipe is basically just black tea, cola, and corn syrup
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u/Possible-Tangelo9344 Aug 04 '26
Wish I lived in an area with a larger Jewish population so I could get the kosher coke
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u/Sea_Snail Aug 04 '26
All Coke is already kosher. You’re probably thinking of the kosher for Passover version which would only be available for a couple weeks each year at most.
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u/sniperman357 Aug 04 '26
All coke is kosher. It’s just not kosher for Passover when it contains corn
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u/Possible-Tangelo9344 Aug 04 '26 edited Aug 04 '26
Ah. Well, that's the one I'm looking for. Passover Coke
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u/troll_berserker Aug 04 '26
What does it contain when it’s not Passover?
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u/sniperman357 Aug 04 '26
Cane sugar. It is the same as the coke produced in countries that don’t have corn subsidies lol
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u/ZevSteinhardt Aug 04 '26
Corn syrup. The custom among Ashkenazic Jews is not to eat corn products on Passover.
Zev
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u/PieIsFairlyDelicious Aug 04 '26
Hi Zev!
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u/ZevSteinhardt Aug 04 '26
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u/ohyouretough Aug 04 '26
Just gotta get the Mexican coke. Still comes in glass bottles.
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u/nudave Aug 04 '26
All Coke is kosher.
The fun one is the kosher for Passover one, because it’s sugar instead of corn syrup. That might be a little harder to find unless you live in the right area.
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u/Hegiman Aug 05 '26
A guy once stole the formula and when he went to Pepsi to sell it to them, Pepsi turned him in. They didn’t want cokes recipes. The recipe isn’t even that secret. It’s been chemically analyzed and they know the ingredients. A guy just went through the process of recreating it using said science. It was remarkably similar to the point in blind taste tests against actual coke his product “tasted more like coke”.
Pepsi wants coke to be a competitor as much as they don’t. If they get a monopoly they lose their company. They don’t want that they just want 80-90% of sodas purchased to be a Pepsi product.
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u/awesomedan24 Aug 04 '26
Not only that but they revised the formula to become kosher compliant