Coca-Cola Emerges Most Innovative Multinational

Soft drinks giant, Coca-Cola Nigeria, has been declared the most innovative multinational company in Nigeria at the 2017 edition of BusinessDay Top 25 Most Innovative Companies and Institutions Awards.

The company was considered worthy of the honour as a result of its milestone achievement in pioneering the bottles-to-fibre recycling operation in the country.

The PET bottle initiative was delivered in 2005 in partnership with Alkem Nigeria Limited, where a PET bottles collection and buyback system was developed and expanded to several cities across the country and the recovered bottles are recycled into synthetic fibre which serves as valuable raw materials for the textile, furniture and bedding industries, among others.

Among other innovations that qualified Coca-Cola for the awards were its 5Alive Pulpy Orange, which was not just the first and only Nigerian made juice with pulp but produced in Nigeria’s first hot-fill line. Other were the inimitable Share-a-Coke marketing campaign and the more recent, the launch of ‘Taste the Feeling’ campaign in 2016 that was created on the Lagos lagoon.

Receiving the award,the firm’s Public Affairs and Com- munications Director for West Africa, Clem Ugorji, expressed gratitude to the award organisers on the initiative.

According to him,the company had leveraged on the success of the recycling programme to lead the establishment of the Food and Beverage Recycling Alliance, a platform it was steering along with Nestle Waters, Nigerian Breweries and Seven-Up Bottling Company to promote industry collaboration and scale up the programme for national coverage.

The Publisher/Chief Executive Officer of BusinessDay Newspaper, Mr. Frank Aigbogun also commended the company including other award winning companies for their doggedness inspite of economic challenges while also adding values to the society.

He added that the awards team had taken pains to ensure that winners in various categories were selected through merit expressed by the observation of due care in all qualifying criteria.

Other companies nominated alongside Coca-Cola Nigeria in the Most Innovative Multinational Company Award category are Guinness Nigeria, LafargeHolcim and AJEAST.

The event was attended by top organisations in Corporate Nigeria as well as top government dignitaries.