DALLAS - Several North Texas employees of Coca-Cola Co. have accused the soft drink maker of repackaging nearly out-of-date soda cans and bottles and then reselling them at stores in minority neighborhoods.
One worker who made deliveries to stores in predominantly white and black Dallas neighborhoods said the practice was widespread and well-known when he started working as a Coca-Cola merchandiser in 1993.
Coca-Cola officials deny the allegations, which they said were not brought to their attention internally.
Llewellyn Hamilton, 49, said so-called ``near dated'' items were shipped from white neighborhood stores and sold at a discount in predominantly black and Hispanic stores.
``They'd lower the price and ship them to the black and Hispanic area stores,'' Hamilton told The Associated Press on Sunday. ``It was common knowledge that we'd recycle it to that neighborhood.''
For example, he said about-to-expire 2-liters of Coke that sold for $1.19 were marked down to about 69 cents.
``I thought it was strange,'' he said. ``They (customers) knew it was something they had to drink right away.''
Rick Gillis, division vice president and general manager for Coca Cola Bottling Company of North Texas, located in Dallas, said after a newspaper reporter brought the allegations to their attention about two weeks ago, they did an internal investigation and spoke with everyone involved in the supply chain.
``We believe without a doubt that these allegations are totally without merit,'' Gillis said.
But Hamilton said company officials knew of the repackaging and did nothing to stop it. ``You'd get those 'don't ask no questions,''' he said.
Kenneth Newsome, a dairy manager at a Sack-N-Save in Oak Cliff, said Coke merchandisers took near-dated soda off the store shelves and repackaged it in the store's back room.
The old soda also was put into the store's vending machines, said Newsome, who has worked at the store for 16 years and first noticed the repackaging about five years ago.
``When it got close to the date on the box, it would just sit there (in the back room) with the chips and damaged goods,'' said Newsome. ``They would bring extra boxes and repack them with tape.''
Hamilton now works a new route, delivering drinks to five grocery stores in Garland and Mesquite, both suburbs of Dallas. There, the policy on about-to-expire soft drinks is much different, he said.
``If it gets within a month of going out of date, we ship it out,'' he said. The aging soda is then returned to the bottler, he said.
``It is racist. There's some things you just live with. We're giving it to them for dirt cheap, but still, you wouldn't do that out here,'' he said.
Bob Lydia, president of the Dallas branch of the NAACP, said they are still investigating the allegations.
``To this date we have not come up with a final on this,'' Lydia said. ``We need some hard fast evidence before we make that claim.''
Meanwhile, Hamilton and others have filed an unrelated lawsuit against Coke.
Attorney Brett Myers represents 10 plaintiffs in a lawsuit that claims that Coca-Cola Bottlers of North Texas had discriminatory promotion practices at its three facilities in Dallas and Fort Worth.
He said the case, which is pending class-action status in federal court in Dallas, includes numerous examples in which white workers with little experience were given promotions while black workers with years of employment were passed over.
``Six months or a year later, these white employees are supervising these 20 year veterans,'' Myers said.
Myers said while the case is unrelated to the claims of date manipulation, it shows the mindset of the company.
``It certainly indicates the prevailing attitude that they think they can get away with certain practices within the black neighborhood that they don't even try with whites,'' he said.
In regards to the discrimination lawsuit, a lawyer representing Coca-Cola, Kevin Wiggins, said, ``We do not believe the allegations are sustainable as they've been pled by the plaintiff. We've taken steps to ask the court to dismiss them.''
In 2000, Atlanta-based Coca-Cola settled a racial discrimination suit for $192.5 million.
Wednesday
May 14th, 2025
1:47AM
