Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the Lead Independent Director of The Coca Cola Company, Senator Sam Nunn.
Good morning, fellow share owners. It's wonderful to be in Atlanta on a great spring morning. The only problem, as some of you may have guessed is there are a few allergies around in there and I have my share. So be a little patient with my voice this morning. Welcome to the world of Coca Cola and the 2019 Annual General Meeting of the Shareholders.
I've had the wonderful, great privilege of serving on the Board of Coca Cola Company, your company since 1997. Today, as I step down from the Board of Directors, I thank you for allowing me to represent your interest for 22 years, including the last 5 years as Lead Independent Director. This shareholders meeting is very special to me and I think to all shareholders and certainly to the Board of Directors. Today, we celebrate the contributions of Muhtar Kent, who is retiring after an amazing career at The Coca Cola Company. As most of you are well aware, Muhtar served as Chief Executive Officer for 8 years before passing the CEO baton to James Quincy in May 2017.
Mutar steps down today as Board Chairman and James assuming your approval today will become Board Chairman as well as CEO. I have never seen a smoother transition than the one between Mutar and James. It has been amazing to watch. Mutar Kent has made a lasting impact on The Coca Cola Company and the global bottling system. Mutar has led our Board with an astute and abiding focus on building the long term strength of this company and its more than 500 brands.
We all know that quarterly results are important for every public company. But Muhtar to his great credit was also always focused on leading, shaping and shepherding this business for the long haul. With Muhtar at the helm, our company and our bottling partners invested strongly in our brands, the ones we've always loved and those we've come to love over the last 10 years. Today, we have $21,000,000,000 brands, 21 brands generating more than $1,000,000,000 in annual retail sales. That's up from $12,000,000,000 brands when Mutar became CEO with more to come in the pipeline.
Shareowners have benefited from Muhtar's leadership both in the near term and in the long term. From the time Muhtar became CEO in 2,008 through today, the company returned $91,000,000,000 to share owners, dollars $146,300,000,000 in dividends and $35,700,000,000 through share repurchases. This during a period of significant currency pressure as a global company. If an investor had bought $1,000 in Coke stock on the day Muhtar was announced as CEO and reinvested the dividends, that $1,000 would now be worth more than $2,500 today. Muhtar took on the long term task in an almost unprecedented way.
He took on the Herculean task of reshaping and reinvigorating our global franchise bottling system. It would be very difficult to overstate the importance of the Coca Cola bottling system to The Coca Cola Company and to long term share owners. As a long time board member, I can tell you that the interest of our company and our bottling partners are now more closely aligned than they have been in a generation. Muhtar Kent as he steps down will leave behind the strongest Coca Cola bottling system history. And I'd like for you to join me in applause for our bottlers around the world.
Together with our bottling partners and the Coca Cola Global team, Mutar has built a strong foundation for future growth. Our brands are strong. Our system is strong. Our leadership development pipeline is strong. We have a strong executive team led by James Quincy.
We have a strong board to guide us forward in the future. Most importantly, we have 62,600 Coca Cola team members building this strength around the globe each and every hour and each and every day. Muhtar has also strengthened our reputation by focusing on initiatives that positively impact lives and communities around the world, a purpose that inspires both the Coca Cola team and those who benefit. His leadership has been essential in helping Coca Cola make a significant global impact in both water conservation and women's economic empowerment with much more in motion, Both within and beyond the world of business, Muhtar Kent has exceptional character and values. Yes, Mutar is a terrific business leader and he is even a better human being.
Muthar is devoted to his wife, Daphne, who has played a crucial role in his brilliant career. And today we also praise and salute Daphne. She is with us in spirit today and I'd like for all of us to applaud Bhutan's most trusted partner, Daphne.
Together,
Mutar and Daphne did a wonderful job of bringing up their children even though their lives were very, very busy. I know that they are very proud of both Selen and Kim and with good reason. Mutar, we wish you, Daphne, Selen and Kim every possible measure of joy, peace and happiness. Andrew Carnegie once said, quoting him, the average person puts only 25% of their energy and ability into their work. The world takes off its hat to those who put in more than 50% of their capacity and it stands on its head for those few and far between souls who devote 100%.
Ladies and gentlemen, Mutar Kent is a few and far between 100% sold. Noticing the maturity of this audience, I won't ask you to stand on your head this morning, But I hope you will all join me in standing on your feet and thanking the Chairman of the Coca Cola Company for all he's done to lead this business and brighten his future. Let's welcome Chairman Buttar Kim.
Thank you so much. I didn't expect it to be that emotional for me and it has become. Good morning and welcome to you all this morning. Thank you, Sam, for your unbelievable 22 years of exceptional, exceptional service to our board, to our company, to our system. Our company, all our share owners have benefited greatly, greatly from your experience, from your deep insights, global insights and also your commitment to Coca Cola.
And on a personal note, Sam, I'm really, really delighted to have worked very closely with you over the last decade and more. And I'm honored also to be leaving this great enterprise in such good hands and such great board, great leadership as we move out. Thank you again, Sam, for what you've done. Thank you. I'd also like to thank former longtime Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, my friend for his valuable contributions to our board over the past 8 years.
Mayor Daley could not be with us today, but we really appreciate his service and we wish him the very best. I'd also like to thank our entire Board, past and present. We have an exceptional, exceptional board and one that's an amazing asset to the Coca Cola Company and to the Coca Cola system. So let's give him a big hand again. My fellow shareowners, 41 years ago is when my Coca Cola journey began.
And it began on a red Coca Cola route truck. Around the world, red Coca Cola trucks are nearly as familiar and nearly as known as the contour bottle. Today, people across all continents, 6 continents can see one of our trucks rolling down a freeway, rounding a corner, stopping outside a store, large or small. And when they see that, they know instantly, they know instantly what that red truck means without thinking about it. They know instantly that it represents delicious ice cold refreshment of the highest integrity and quality.
Always they know it's always available, always affordable and always ready to be enjoyed with family and friends. That's what they think about when they see one of those red trucks. And I in 1978 spent 9 months on a red route truck here in Atlanta, in Lubbock, Texas, in Needham, Massachusetts, in Los Angeles. And I learned right from the start then in 'seventy eight that you have to get out into the marketplace to really understand this amazing business of ours. In fact, where that action is, where for refreshment in the 27,500,000 points of sale around the world.
And I've kind of carried that lesson with me ever since. And even now whenever I visit a store after 41 years and I do it often, I learn something new every time. It doesn't matter where, I learn something new every time. So I started on a Coca Cola red truck. And in a sense, I've been riding those red trucks for 4 decades, all around the world, different parts of the world.
In the late 1980s, I found myself in Vienna, in Central and Eastern Europe when the wall began to collapse. And when the wall and that wall came down, my colleagues and I, we literally and metaphorically rode Red Route trucks into Eastern Europe, into Poland, into Romania, into Hungary, into the Czech Republic, then it was called Czechoslovakia, into Moldova, into Russia. We built 21 Coca Cola Factories plants in 24 months at that time. And we were welcome back into markets that had been largely closed for almost half a century. And later in my career, I had the opportunity to run bottling businesses in Central Europe first and then in Turkey, a company called FS based in Istanbul.
And with my colleagues that we built a strong bottling business with flourishing operations across 8 countries in a way from the Adriatic to China because part of Central Asia was in that territory. And ultimately, ultimately my red route truck carried me back to Atlanta, the birth of Coca Cola, the hometown of Coca Cola. And when I became CEO in 2,008, I drew inspiration from my friend, from my dear mentor, the great Don Kio, former President of The Coca Cola Company and Chief Operating Officer. And as a leader, Don was constantly and always polishing our brands. That really was something that he did every morning when he came to work.
His goal was to leave our brands a little bit shinier, leave our brands a little bit brighter, a little more attractive than the day before. And I kind of adopted that approach because you couldn't get any better than that. And indeed our entire company and system in a way embraced Don's approach. We together purpose to polish our brands, add a little more shine, brightness, value to them every single day. And also something else that I knew and I was not alone that our business also needed a renewed kind of invigoration for growth, renewed vision for growth for what was possible and what we could accomplish together with our great bottling partners, some of whom have traveled here and are here today in the audience.
And my friend, my colleague, my predecessor, Neville Lisdale had gotten the business out of the ditch, back on the road and we needed to build on what Neville and his team had accomplished, build on that, build and get that foundation stronger. So early on, we gathered with our top bottling partners in Florida and Boca Raton and began to together craft what became then our 2020 vision, the first system wide vision growth plan in Coca Cola's long history. We needed to get in a way everyone on the same page, pulling in that same direction. That's what I recall that those 3 days were all dedicated to. And our 2020 vision helped us do that and much more, much more from 2,009 onwards when we said it.
Together we committed to investing strongly, consistently, strongly and consistently in our brands through our marketing, advertising, through our packaging, point of sale, every other form of brand building. And this morning here with you today, I believe this is one of the key reasons our business remains strong even as some other consumer goods companies have actually struggled recently to keep their brands relevant. Meanwhile, we also came to the conclusion that the bottling system needed a little work. While we had many, many great bottling partners and we still have, we have some at that time underperforming ones, some lacking a persistent undeniable appetite for growth. And so this of course became a hard, but necessary multi year, multi stage process.
And again, I thank our board for supporting us in that endeavor, in that multi year, multi stage process. There was a phase first of key acquisitions, including the purchase of most of our US and European bottling operations. Later when we had made improvements and the time was right, we began to refranchise these company owned operations, returning them to eager and committed franchise partners who shared implicitly that vision and thirst for growth. So as a team, we kind of increased the pace of brand development, acquisition. Consumer tastes were and still are rapidly changing.
And we needed to build a more complete and compelling brand portfolio for the future. And today, of course, James and his team are continuing to increase that pace of acquiring, developing, building new brands, brand extensions as well as flavors. Another area of opportunity was packaging. A decade ago, we offered limited packs, limited sizes, which was, shall we say, suboptimal for total value creation. It kind of one day I was in a market in Penn Station in New York, visiting the marketplace with a group of colleagues.
And we were visiting all the different outlets in Penn Station in New York and we saw so many little tables of cafes inside Penn Station. The cafes tables were outside and people had left. But on the tables were 20 ounce bottles of our products with all not finished. There were some at the bottom, some of them half, some of them little less, but people had left. People had actually paid for them, not consumed everything and left.
And I said, look what we're seeing here. We're seeing something that is basically looking at us in the face and saying, we don't have an optimal packaging strategy. And from there, we developed the new packaging strategy. And you may recall not so many years ago, as I said, when aisles were dominated by 12 packs and 2 liters. Today, complete metamorphosis.
If you go, you see what's on the aisles, smaller, much different, smaller packs, mini cans, smaller glass bottles, smaller PET bottles, serving sizes different and creating added value for our bottlers and also for our customers. So all these steps and many more, we kept our eyes on the future and constantly our driving commitment, as I've said, was to build this business, not just for the next as Sam said, not just for the next quarter, but the next quarter of a century. That's kind of what guided us. And again, I thank our board for their implicit support, strong support that they gave us for that. And to this end, we embraced a 21st century view of long term value creation, knowing that for our business optimizing your return, return to you, our shareowners, also meant creating rising value for our people first, our employees of our system, 700,000 strong, our bottling partners, other business partners, our customers, our consumers, communities and more than 200 nations that and governments that host us.
That's our model of stakeholder value creation for the long term. And in this, we were able to build a robust heritage of also community value creation that goes back more than 130 years to Coca Cola's earliest days. We focused on making a real difference in water conservation, working with many partners around the world. We achieved water neutrality back in 2015, 5 years ahead of the goal. And when we talked about that goal, people thought we looked at us strangely.
What are they talking about?
So
consider this for a moment, just consider this. This beautiful bottle of smart water is 1 liter. Since our water efforts began back in 2,008, we have now replenished more than 1,000,000,000,000 liters to the world. That's how we became water positive, not water neutral, but water positive. That for perspective would fill roughly 500,000 Olympic sized swimming pools.
We also launched a very bold women's economic development initiative called 5 by 20 with a goal of empowering 5,000,000 women entrepreneurs globally in this decade outside of our four walls. And at the end of last year, we'd reached more than 3,200,000 women entrepreneurs audited out by outside firms. And I'd just like to share with you a very brief video of one of their stories. Could we play the video?
In Nigeria, education is most important. I have to drop out of school because I had 2 crepes, I've been able to buy 54 plants.
1 of 3,200,000. Had it not been for this initiative, those 3,200,000 women would not have a great opportunity and chance in the world to participate in the benefits that this world offers. 2 years ago in May 2017, I handed the keys of the red Coca Cola route truck to James Quincey, our outstanding CEO and Chairman-elect. At the time, I said he was the right leader at the right time with the right instincts, with the right experience, skill set to lead this business forward. And he has proven me right at every turn, at every turn.
And indeed, I'm very proud of our seamless leadership transition, something that I began thinking of really about over a decade ago as soon as I became CEO. James has done and continues to do an exceptional job. Our CEO and Chairman elect is leading our business in new and exciting directions while increasing the pace of portfolio, of brand and of flavor expansion. And we're gaining momentum, fresh momentum as a result. Looking back, I give all my Coca Cola colleagues, associates around the world tremendous credit for the success that we have built together.
I also want to thank our consumers for making us part of their lives almost 2,000,000,000 times every single day. I also want to thank our customers for including us in their exciting growth plans, all of those 2,700,000 customers. Our communities for welcoming our business and for welcoming our brands into their communities and our many public and private partners for joining us in making a lasting positive difference in the world. And of course, last but not least, I want to thank you, our esteemed shareholders, for your trust, for your confidence and also for your investment in The Coca Cola Company, your continuing investment in The Coca Cola Company, all of you. We'll continue to work for you just as we have become when we became a public company 100 years ago in 1919, our 100th anniversary as a public company.
And indeed today, as I think about the past 41 years, as I reflect upon this journey that I've been so fortunate to have, it's kind of coming full circle for me again. Considering that I became a shareowner myself about a year after my career began in 1980, After this meeting, I'll no longer be your Chairman, but I'll remain a very, very, very proud shareowner. And I'll continue to follow with eagerness progress of Coca Cola with great interest and great pride. Consider this, I'm 66 years old. I spent roughly the first third of my life going to school with my family, going to schools, college.
So and then the rest, 41 of the past 44 years, more than 90% of my life was this journey, this amazing journey. So this morning, I feel amazingly proud, very proud to have and very fortunate to have enjoyed this long fruitful association with the most world's most loved brands. And I have a plain and simple message for all of you this morning, our best and our brightest days are ahead. Our best and brightest days are ahead. And why do I say that?
I say that because we have a great CEO, great executive management, a great team, great group of bottling partners, a great set of customers and a great brand portfolio. That's why I say that. And they're all getting better. The business model is improving. They're getting better.
And finally, as Sam mentioned, I thank all my family for staying with me, for supporting me, my late parents, my adult children, Celine and Jem, and of course, my dear wife of 40 years, Defne. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being here.
Thank you for your investment. It's been the honor of my life to help lead this business as CEO and Board Chairman over the past decade. And I want to just humbly say give a heartfelt gratitude for all that Coca Cola has done for me as a person, and thank you for your share all the share owners for having supported us and our board again. Thank you very much. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Now to update you on our progress and look forward to the road ahead. As I said, the best days are ahead. Please join me in welcoming the CEO and Chairman-elect of our company, James Quincy. Give him a warm hand.
Thank you, Muhtar. Good morning, everyone. I don't think I can add any words to that. It's truly been a remarkable story. But let us turn and start talking about the future, talk about the future of the company, its path forward, and then of course the business of the AGM.
But let me then take 10 minutes before we jump into the business of the AGM to just summarize how we see the future, what we see ahead of us. Of course, ahead of us in any public company presentation is this statement. You'll all have enjoyed it over the years. Moving on swiftly. I know you didn't get chance to the last sentence.
Don't worry, it'll be back. We have an amazing business. Mudar talked about how we've been a public company for 100 years, been going for over 130. Muhtar has been here for 40 of them. And what's been built is truly a remarkable enterprise, a remarkable enterprise not just in beverages, but also in consumer products, perhaps even in American enterprise.
It's an enterprise that has a portfolio of brands, as Sam mentioned, dollars 21,000,000,000 brands. And that in simple terms makes us number 1 or number 2 in all the major categories around the world, whether that be our original sparkling beverage brands or juices, plant and dairy, hydration, teas, coffees and energy. We're number 1 or number 2 in every category. And that amazing brand portfolio that's owned by the Coca Cola Company also benefits in a tremendously symbiotic relationship with its bottling partners. For they have been able to use those brands to generate global and pervasive distribution.
We literally are in almost every corner of the globe, literally every corner of the globe. And not by chance, not just because of the power and the strength of the brands, because of what's been built in the distribution system. The amount of red trucks, as Mudar talked about, the bottling partners own, the cold drink equipment that does not just display the brands, but also serve them at the best temperature. We reached the corners of the globe with a competitive advantage that is enduring and long lasting, but is at the end of the day just the beginning as Mudar talked about. And let me try and symbolize in a simple way why we think this 130 plus years and this incredible leadership position is in fact just the beginning.
It's just the beginning because the long term opportunity ahead of us is still enormous. It's still enormous. If you take these 2 simple bottles of drinks, on the left hand side you've got developed markets of the world. These account for about 20% of the world's population, 1,500,000,000 people. In those countries, about 3 quarters of what people drink is commercial beverages, they paid some money for it.
And you can see whether that's alcohol or hot beverages or cold beverages, we even in those markets, whilst we have a leadership position, our share is some 21% of the cold beverages and very small in hot beverages. In the developed world, we still have an enormous opportunity to grow share. Perhaps the even greater opportunity is on the right hand side, the developing and emerging markets. This is where 80% of the world's population live, 6,100,000,000 people. There, commercial beverages only represent 1 in every 4 of the drinks they consume.
And our share of that has a lot of room for growth. So we truly believe that despite all that's been accomplished over 130 years, there is in fact a huge runway ahead of us of multi decade opportunity for growth, and we absolutely intend to build on it. And to do so, of course, we need the right strategies. We spent a lot of time over the last number of years, Mutham mentioned a good number of what's happened, reinvesting in the sparkling brands, reforming and refranchising the modeling system. And we believe we truly now have the platform that will allow us to go into the future to capture the opportunity ahead of us.
We've got the portfolio of brands, but what we're bringing to that is greater discipline in stewarding and growing those brands. Not all of them are equal, some are in truly fabulous leadership positions around the world. Others have come into being challenging, they might be a number 2 or number 3. And some of them are just beginning, just exploring, just nascent. The way we need to market and nurture those brands will depend on its stage of growth, and the discipline will allow us to further extend our leadership positions.
And as I said in the beginning, we only do that because of the symbiotic relationship with the modeling system, where our switch from perhaps too much of a volume focus to a greater value focus, which of course includes volume, has allowed us to intensify our alignment, our strategic alignment with the modelers, bringing in new bottling partners, creating scale, creating more investment that is further driving the ability to execute and leverage our competitive advantage to distribute around the world, creating a truly system winning culture. And doing so in a way that wins with stakeholders. The Coca Cola Company has always had an approach that it cannot win unless the whole community wins, not just us, the bottling partners, the customers, but indeed the broader community. And in doing this, we do need to bring ourselves constantly up to date. One of those is around digitizing the enterprise, truly changing the way we work, the way we interact with our customers and the way we engage with our consumers to bring ourselves into a truly and fully digital age.
Doing so, we've of course had to continue to evolve our culture to become more focused on growth, more focused on empowerment. The bigger and more dispersed and the larger the enterprise becomes, the more that every corner of it needs to feel empowered to take the actions necessary to grow. And in growing, as I said, it's not just about growing for the benefit of the Coca Cola Company, all of you, the shareholders, of course, that is the end result. We need to make sure that we grow in the right way. And we need to do business the right way.
There are many aspects of that, and let me just pull out a few. Muhtar talked about water leadership. We became water neutral, actually even water positive now, well ahead of schedule. And that was we started with water when that was in a way the core essence of the product, the most important thing that underpins the beverage enterprise, the water, the liquid within it. And so returning all the water we use to the environment seemed like the right place to start.
We launched last year the world without waste. It's clear that the other key part of our beverage portfolio is the container it comes in, And it's simply not going to be acceptable in the future for that to turn into waste. So we set ourselves the goal of not just making all our packaging recyclable, but make sure that by 2,030 we recovered a bottle or can for everyone we sold and then started using it in our products. In fact, of all the things that companies use to package up their materials, our containers are in a way a great place to be, because each one of those containers has intrinsic value. If it can be recovered, it can be completely reused in another bottle.
And so we truly can create a closed loop economy with our packaging material, so we are both water neutral and from a packaging point of view, we don't create any waste. And as we go forward, we'll continue to invest in the communities, whether it's some of our big global programs like 5x20 that Muhtar just talked so eloquently about, or more local things, our support here in Atlanta for the community, for the Police Foundation and the Westside Development Funds. We operate both at the global community level and at its most local. And perhaps to try and bring all this and give you a sense of what this feels like, what this looks like, I'll run a short video before I summarize. So if you could run the video, please.
So in summary, your company has an incredibly bright future ahead of it. It's truly positioned to win in a great industry, a growing industry, an industry with lots of opportunity. We've been transforming the portfolio and we're stewarding it with discipline. Together with our bottling partners, we're executing in an aligned way. The culture has continued to evolve to be even more empowered and growth orientated, and we're doing so while doing business the right way.
So shareholders, your company has a bright and great future ahead of it.
Ladies and gentlemen, the business portion
of our meeting will now begin.
Please welcome back Chairman of the Board, Muhtar Kent.
Thank you, James, for that very compelling story about the future. As I said, I really, really believe the brightest and best days are ahead and you can see why. Now I'd like to open formally the business meeting. Today, we're going to address 5 items that are detailed in your proxy statements. Following that, I will conduct a question and answer session in which we will address questions about any of the 5 items or other business issues that you may wish to raise.
And our intent is to finish this morning's meeting by 10:15. Let me first welcome the people joining me on the and Chairman-elect, who you've met John Murphy, Executive Vice President and our Chief Financial Officer Bernard Gurpelt, Senior Vice President and our General Counsel and Jennifer Manning, Associate General Counsel and Corporate Secretary. Now, I'd like to extend a special and warm welcome once again to our Board of Directors who have joined us this morning. Bios for all director nominees are included in your proxy statement beginning on Page 18. I will ask each of our directors to stand as I mentioned them by name and I will ask you to please, please hold your applause until they are all introduced.
So I will start with Herbert Allen. Please hold your applause. Ron Allen, Mark Boland, Anna Patricia Bautin, Chris Davis, if you would just remain standing, if you could please. Chris Davis, Helene Gayle, Alexis Herman, Bobby Kotick, Mel Lagomacino, James Quincy is here, Carolyn Tsai and David Weinberg. Thank you.
Thank you very much. This is a very capable group of directors. They are a model for dedicated and effective board leadership. They provide company leadership with thoughtful guidance always with the highest integrity. We are thankful, fortunate for their service and dedication to our company and to you, our share owners.
And we also have representatives from our independent auditing firm Ernst and Young here today, who I will ask now to stand. Could you please stand? Thank you. Thanks very much. Thank you.
And finally, we have many of our long term long time share owners, you as well as our employees, my associates and alumni here today with us and I extend a very, very warm welcome to all of Before we begin today's business, I extend an invitation for you to stay on and enjoy our world of Coca Cola today with our compliments. This wonderful facility will open to you shortly after the conclusion of today's meeting this morning. Now on to today's voting matters. In the packet in your seat, you will find an agenda of the meeting and you will find a copy of the proxy statement. These will serve as your roadmap to the business items we will be discussing today and I encourage you to follow along, please.
Also in the packet are our meeting procedures and our rules of conduct. Ensuring this meeting is productive and is safe is as always our top priority. So I ask you to please closely, please closely follow these rules. Here's how the meeting is going to flow. Our Corporate Secretary, Jennifer Manning, will present each of the 3 management proposals.
There are also 2 shareholder proposals, which will be presented by the proponents or their representatives. The presentation of the shareholder proposals will be limited to 3 minutes. After each of the 5 proposals are presented, I will present our board's point of view and our board's recommendation. Just like last year, after all five business items have been presented, we will conduct a question and answer session where I will take questions on those 5 items or other items that we are voting on today or any other issue top business topics that you would like me to address. Jennifer, would you please bring us the secretary's report now?
The notice for this annual meeting and its related proxy statement were mailed beginning March 7, 2019 to all shariners of record as of February 25, 2019. Our inspectors of election from Computershare Trust Company NA advised that we have a quorum represented by 87% of the total shares eligible to vote. The polls are now open. There are 5 matters to be voted on. On Page 3 of the proxy statement, you will find a list of the voting matters.
If you need a ballot, please raise your hand now. But remember, you do not need a ballot if you have already voted. The polls will be open until the end of the Q and A session, at which time ballots will be collected. That concludes the secretary's report, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Jennifer. Would you now please present the first matter to be voted on?
The first matter is the election of directors. The company's bylaws require that every director stand for election each year. Therefore, all of the director nominees listed in your proxy statement are nominated for election for a 1 year term expiring in 2020.
Thanks, Jennifer. We have, as I've mentioned, a very knowledgeable and engaged board. Our director nominees are highly qualified to represent the interest of you, our share owners. The governance section beginning on Page 13 of your proxy statement provides details about this item, including each director nominees qualifications. There is a recommendation to vote for each nominee.
As I just explained, I will take questions on this and any other matters during the Q and A session, which I will conduct after all voting matters are presented. Now, Jennifer, could we go to the next item please?
On Page 46 of your proxy statement is the advisory vote to approve executive compensation. As required, the company seeks a non binding advisory vote from shareowners to approve the compensation of the company's named executive officers as described in the compensation discussion and analysis and compensation tables of the proxy statement.
Thank you. The compensation discussion and analysis in your proxy statements explains how the compensation committee views company performance and also how executive pay is tied to that performance. We take this say on pay vote very seriously and the compensation committee will continue to consider the outcome of the advisory vote when making compensation decisions. The Board of Directors recommends a vote for the advisory vote on executive compensation. Jennifer, would you now please present the 3rd item?
Our audit committee has appointed the firm of Ernst and Young LLP to serve as the company's independent auditors for the 2019 fiscal year and this item seeks ratification of this appointment. The audit matters section of our proxy statement, which includes this proposal begins on page 88.
Thank you, Jennifer. The audits committee and the board believe that our auditors Ernst and Young serve the company and serve you, our share owners well and therefore recommends a vote for the ratification of this appointment. Jennifer, would you now please present the 4th item?
Our 4th business item is a share in a proposal seeking an independent board chair. This proposal and the Board's response are on Page 93 of your proxy statement. Mr. Malik Sia from the Teamsters Union will present the proposal. As a reminder, the presentation of the Shareholders' proposals are limited to 3 minutes.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members
of the Board, fellow shareholders.
My name is Luis Malizia and I am representing the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, longtime Coca Cola Company shareholders and North America's largest union representing Coca Cola workers who produce package and distribute Coke products. The Teamsters General Fund urges the Board to adopt the policy for an independent share. Coke's leadership transition provides the perfect time to move to this best practice in corporate governance. Investors demand and deserve a leader of the Board whose first responsibility is accountability to stakeholders, not one who decides and directs day to day operations as well. We believe an independent chair makes management oversight even more rigorous.
Our CEO must manage the business, which includes overseeing our key relationships with the many bottlers throughout the U. S. And around the globe and to manage the risk inherent with the loss control of the products such as customer relations and quality control that comes with our franchising.
We urge our fellow shareholders to vote for this proposal
and take an important step for accountability. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Melicia. And we I appreciate you being a long time share owner and also we appreciate our long relationship with the Teamsters first. Secondly, we appreciate your raising this important issue. We understand, we respect many of the arguments made by those who might support the idea of an independent director as Board Chair.
However, we believe that a leadership structure, which includes a combined Board Chair and CEO is the best structure for our company. As we go forward, the leadership of both the Board and the company by James will be the optimal structure to guide this company and to achieve and surpass our business goals. A combined Chairman of the Board and CEO is just I want to just make sure that I remind everyone is just one element of our leadership structure, which also includes our leadership structure, which also includes a lead independent director, active non employee directors and Board committees led primarily by independent directors. We are fortunate to have had such an independent effective lead director over the past 5 years in Senator Sam Nunn and now also an equally strong incoming lead independent director in Mel La Gomacino. It is important to note that if the board believes the board believes that a different structure, leadership structure is warranted, they will make the change.
With our current governance structure, the board has the flexibility to make these kind of changes amendments based on the specific needs of our business. And we've done this in practice. The board has demonstrated that it will prudently exercise this judgment when shareholder interests are best served. This was the case when the leadership structure was changed back in 2007 and again recently in 2017 to ensure an orderly CEO transition. Again, I encourage all of you to read more about this beginning on Page 93 in your proxy statements.
So that is would be our point of view right now. So Jennifer, would you please present the 5th and final item?
Our 5th and final business item is a shareowner proposal requesting a report on sugar and public health. This proposal and the board's response are on Page 95 of your proxy statement. Mr. Rogers will present the proposal.
Thank you, Mr. Kent. I'm here representing John Harrington. Before I introduce John Harrington's proposal on sugar and public health, I want to ask 2 remarkable women who have traveled long distances to be at this meeting to stand up and be recognized. Doctor.
Esperanza Seron, please stand up, Doctor. Seron, has come here from Colombia. And Rebecca Burner is here representing Mexico's leading consumer organization, El Poder del Consumador. Rebecca, over there. Thank you.
No countries have been harder hit than Mexico and Colombia with skyrocketing rates of obesity, diabetes and other serious health issues attributed to high consumption of sugar and especially what's referred to as liquid sugar found in sodas, energy and sports drinks. I hope Mr. Chair that you will give both these women an opportunity to address why it is so important to our nation's and the world's health and especially the health of children that large Coca Cola share owners like Warren Buffett, Bill and Melinda Gates, The Vanguard Group and BlackRock vote in support of the proposal. There is mounting scientific evidence showing that there is a national and worldwide health crisis being caused by overconsumption of sugar and that the Coca Cola Company, following the playbook of the tobacco industry, is trying to downplay the crisis and the scientific evidence. Harrington, who heads up an investment company, is also trying to wake up and warn investors and potential investors in Coca Cola that if the company continues along the path of keeping its head in the sand and trying to deceive the public by funding front groups and producing junk science and bogus reports downplaying the detrimental effects of sugar consumption on health, the company's overall value could be at risk and plummet.
Mr. Harrington's proposal makes a simple request that the Board of Directors issue a report on sugar and health and public health with support from a group of independent and nationally recognized scientists and scholars providing critical feedback on Coca Cola's sugar products and especially those products targeted to children and young consumers. 3rd party publications cannot fulfill the board oversight required by the proposal and Coca Cola's publications on the subject are misleadingly incomplete. Frankly, every executive and member of the board should welcome this proposal and give it a thumbs up. One last thing, you met the you in the opposition, the company's opposition to the proposal, you mentioned the Access to Nutrition Foundation, a respected independent non profit organization, which is based in the Netherlands, already produced reports covering our company that encompasses sugar and public health, and we believe addresses the essential objectives start by the proposal.
Well, let me tell you the Access to Nutrition Foundation and has an index. Coca Cola is down the bottom, way below Pepsi and Nestle and other companies. But you want to know something, even their scores are terrible. So Coca Cola in the industry has a lot to do to make things better. One last thing, to learn more about the arguments posed to the Securities and Exchange Commission whether to order Coca Cola to include the resolution on its 2019 proxy statement, and battle Coca Cola obviously lost, please visit our new revamped website www.killercoke.org.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Rogers. You actually talked about really why we believe or what is our board's position on this proposal.
This proposal requests specifically that the board issue a report on sugar and public health with support from group of independent nationally recognized scientists and scholars. That's what the proposal is about. And the Access to Nutrition Foundation, which is a respected non profit organization based in Holland and is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation already produces reports covering our company that encompasses sugar, includes public health and we believe addresses the essential goals sought by that proposal. The access to nutrition reports most recently published was 2018 last year provided and that report provided a detailed analysis and commentary on leading food and beverage manufacturers' efforts to improve consumers' access to nutritious beverages and foods. These reports are designed to be used by various different stakeholder groups, including academia, including civil society organizations.
All of this is outlined on Page 96 in very simple plain English. Additional reporting as requested in the proposal would provide no useful information that is not already covered in the access to nutrition reports. And the last one that was published, as I said, was in 2018. Importantly though, let me just again stress that we certainly recognize the role our company must play in addressing health challenges. This proposal might lead you to believe that our company is not a responsible player in this area and nothing could be further from the truth.
Our company fully comprehends that people should not eat or drink too much sugar. We are taking also specific and meaningful actions to assist, to help to make consumers more aware about more easily and more easily control the consumption of added sugar. Just to give you a couple of bullet points, 425,000 tons of sugar have been removed from the market through product reformulations and packages. Only in 2018, last year, 400 products were reformulated alone, bringing the total to 800. So only in 1 year, we took as much as was reformulated in the past and did reformulations in last year of 400 more products.
Products with no sugar that we have are growing double digits like Coca Cola Zero Sugar. And 40% now, 40% of our sparkling soft drink brands in the U. S. Come in 8.5 ounce mini cans. And North America last year saw a 30% growth in its mini cans.
So and we finally support the WHO recommendation in limiting added sugar to 10% of the total diet. We support that. Publicly, we've said that. So those are just a few bullet points. And I don't know if our CEO, James, would like to add anything.
I think he's coming in.
All right. So that's really our point of view. Since all voting matters have been presented, that concludes the business portion of our meeting. The polls are going to open the polls are going to close at the end of the Q and A session, which is coming up now. If you have any completed ballot, please raise your hand and someone is going to collect it.
Before we begin our Q and A session, I will ask Jennifer for the preliminary voting report. Jennifer?
Thank you. The following vote is preliminary. If you are voting here today, your vote will be tallied this afternoon and included in our final vote. And as Muhtar said, the polls will close after the Q and A. The inspectors of election report that each nominee for election as director has received at least the majority of the votes cast in favor of their election.
Therefore, all of the director candidates have been elected to serve as a director until 2020. The advisory vote to approve executive compensation has been approved with an affirmative vote of 97%. The management proposal on the ratification of Ernst and Young as auditors has been approved with an affirmative vote of 97%. The shareowner proposal regarding an independent board chair did not pass and had an affirmative vote of 17.9%. The shareowner proposal regarding a study on sugar and public health did not pass and had an affirmative vote of 4.8%.
That concludes the preliminary vote report.
Thanks, Jennifer. We will now turn to the Q and A session. I will take questions from the floor. Secondly, I will take questions submitted in advance on our website, AGM website. And thirdly, from if there are any from the overflow room.
Attendance, microphone attendance will help me select attendees wishing to address the meeting. The microphone attendants that have those numbered paddles, can we just erase them, please? And I will ask those attendants to identify I will ask the microphone attendants to identify yourselves when you want to ask a question. When the Q and A session begins, if you have a question, please raise your hand, but remain seated. Please wait for the attendants to call on you before you proceed to the end of the aisle of your row.
It is important as it will keep too many people from standing and blocking the view of those that are behind you. Thank you for your cooperation in advance. Produce your admissions card to the attendant who will introduce you or the share owner that you represent. And at that point, please, please proceed with your questions. Please direct all questions to me as the chair of the meeting and either James or myself will answer those questions.
Please limit your questions to 2 minutes each. We are using a clock to keep us aware of that time. We're going to keep going. Please have thank you. If you go over your allotted time, I will ask you to please finish your remarks and sit down.
If you disrupt the meeting, I will ask you unfortunately to leave us. So those are the meeting procedures. We welcome questions. We welcome comments about any of the voting items or that we just covered or the general business affairs of our company. Again, please stay on time with the 2 minutes.
So I'll go to the first question. Is there a question? Paddle 2. Yes. Yes, go ahead.
Mr. Chairman, I introduce Mr. Chase Mushe.
Thank you, Mr. Kent. There was an article in the Wall Street Journal that recently reported on the CEO pay ratio being higher this past year than previously. Could you share some insight into why this number changed so significantly?
Thank you. I will. First, let me say that we pay for performance across the board. We don't not just for executive level, but different all levels. And our program compensation program remains very competitive in every market that we operate at every level.
Many factors affect pay ratio comparing year on year may not tell the whole story, may not tell the whole story. A few companies are as global as the Coca Cola Company and that affects median salaries because of the global nature, given specifically differences in cost of living and market pay in different regions of the world. This year, for example, the year of the comparison, our numbers included more than 17,000 employees of Coca Cola Beverages It was not in the numbers the year before, 17,000 from Coca Cola Beverages Africa because they came into our system in the calculation. Also, our North America refranchising efforts completed took 20,000 employees out of our base, 20,000. So another factor in the timing again of the changes in our leadership was another factor because James was CEO for the full year in 2018 that went into the denominator and numerator as opposed to half of the year in 2017.
So those are some of the reasons that drove the critical key reasons that drove the differences from year on year, which was the basis of your question, why did it go up. So that's basically how I would address that question. Thank you for your question. Panel 3.
Mr. Chairman, I present Jordan Arougheti.
Good morning, Mr. Kent. People of all ages are increasingly concerned with the amount of plastic waste in our environment, especially in our oceans. What role does the Coca Cola Company have in this specifically in helping to solve the problem? Thank you, sir.
Thank you. I mean clearly and understandably there's a lot of concern about plastic waste in the environment and especially in our oceans. And we understand that and we believe we do have an important role, leadership role to play in this area. I think James in his discussion talked about the importance of a world without waste and I'll ask him to address your question in more detail.
Sure. Our objective is to make sure we got to a world without waste. We need to recover, not just have recyclable, but to recover all our packaging and begin to reuse it. Actually, as we sit here today, virtually all our in the sense that in the sense that if we can recover it, it can be reused and be part of the circular economy. The biggest gap to making that circular economy work is collection.
Technology, it already exists to be able to recycle the packaging from collection back into bottles. We have parts of our operations around the world where we have very large recycling facilities that once we get the bottles, we're able to convert them back into PET that can be used in bottles. Mexico has a massive facility. Western we have the largest facility in Western Europe. So we have the technology, we have the capability to reuse the PT.
The gap is collection. So what are we doing? We're working with a whole series of governments around the world, because it's going to take not just ourselves, but other manufacturers and retailers and government, particularly local government to bring into being effective collection schemes so that we can recover PET and other materials, aluminum, etcetera, etcetera, but we can recover the PET. We know it can be done. There are countries in the world where they have over 90% recollection rate.
So this is something that is doable and it's not just a developed world. So we know from our experiences in Mexico and South Africa, you can go from low single digits collection into 2 thirds 70% collection rates within a decade relatively doable. So we know this is something that can be solved in the developed world and in the emerging economies. It is an organizational problem. It's complex, involves a lot of players, but we're very committed to playing our part to getting it done.
We're partnering with a lot of other people to do it. We see that manufacturing industries are on board. Other companies like ours have set very similar goals to recover and reuse. Retailers are on board. So I think this is something that is getting a lot of traction among the manufacturing and retail industry.
But there's still a long way to go because of the immense organizational challenge of putting in these collection systems.
Thanks. Thanks, James. Let me now just take a question submitted in advance from our Annual Meeting website. Jennifer, would you read a question and I'll come back to the audience.
This question was submitted by Alan Charmin. Can you talk more about coffee and how it fits into the broader growth strategy? Is Costa coming to the U. S?
Thank you. With the growth in coffee and hot beverages and taking into account that we are a non alcoholic beverage business and company and system, it's more important than ever that we make serious and significant inroads and investments into a category that's growing so fast and we did. And I'll ask James to add some more details to that. Thank you, Muthar.
Yeah, as Muthar mentioned, it's not only one of the largest categories, actually, you could see it in the little bottles at the beginning, but it's one of the fastest growing categories around the world. And it's a category that's not just about hot beverages, because it actually takes many different shapes and forms. It can be coffee at home, it can be coffee in a coffee shop, it can be coffee in someone else's restaurant outlet or in fact across a whole series of different channels, whether they be convenience stores or petrol stations or at work or at university. There are many different forms of coffee. So what we see as the opportunity for The Coca Cola Company in an industry that is ultimately still very fragmented, no one company or enterprise has as much share so that they truly lead and dominate the category.
And so we see an opportunity for growth for us. We've done well in ready to drink. We're actually the global leader in ready to drink coffee, although that's driven entirely out of our Asian business with Georgia Coffee in Japan. What Costa will allow us to do is to create a coffee platform. It will have a foot in the retail where it creates the brand experience and helps generate the brand imagery.
But then that brand can then be used in the different other elements of the coffee industry, whether that's in the next easiest thing to do for us, which is ready to drink coffee, which we'll be launching later this quarter, or in fact, become a beverage partner, a better beverage partner to many of our other customers because one of the things that Costa brings is a vending machine, which is in a way the hot version of our Freestyle vending machine and they have almost 3 times as many of these, if you like, automatic coffee shops as they have actual coffee shops. And these vending machines are great for convenience stores, for petrol stations, for at work, for a whole series of other places where the coffee provision is still, if you can excuse the pun, lukewarm. And we've got a tremendous opportunity to upgrade it and their capability allows us to do it, whether it's with the vending machine or in fact
the provision
of beams and machines. So it will provide us a brand that we can use across whole series of different formats to serve even better a whole series of different channels and provide growth for the Coke company.
Thanks, James. I see Ron Oswald in the audience from the IUF. Ron, would you I think you've got a question. I know you do. And if you want to, we welcome your comments.
Thank you.
Thank you. Actually, I do have a question if there's time later, but I'd like to the President of the IUF to ask a question on our behalf, Mr. Mark Laurisson, if that's okay. Thank you. Sure, Ron.
Thank you, Chair. It's interesting, a little less than a year ago right here in Atlanta, Coca Cola hosted the Human Rights Conference. And Coca Cola always claims to promote access to human rights throughout the globe. But in the UN Declaration of Human Rights, there are a whole list of human rights. And to devalue one human right devalues every one of them.
And I'm concerned, Mr. Chairman, that today Coca Cola is starting to devalue certain human rights, namely the human right for workers across the globe to join a trade union of their choice without interference. Namely, just last night, workers in the United States, they got to cast a ballot, but it wasn't a fair ballot because they were threatened. People that wear the Coca Cola uniform, They were threatened with their jobs, with their financial stability and they were threatened and then had to go make a choice to vote. In Indonesia, the Coca Cola Company is supporting a structure that was put in place a labor relations structure put in place by the Swarto regime, probably one of the most abusive human rights abusers regimes ever in history, one of the worst in history.
So here we sit in Indonesia supporting a structure that was put in place by a human rights abuser and then the Coca Cola Company and its subsidiaries are terminating union officials, breaking unions in Indonesia. These are two examples that are happening right now or just happened. So So my question then to the chair is this, when is Coca Cola Company going to start really enforcing what they say in their papers and their documents? When are they really going to live the mantra that they preach in their papers? And that's my question to the chair.
Thank you. Let me just dial back just a bit and just say that we've had a long standing relationship with you, the IUF, and we worked through numerous challenges together, talking and worked through numerous challenges over the years with you primarily at the helm, Ron. And I know that now with what's mentioned, you come to us in the spirit of collaboration in and we want to continue to move with a productive dialogue. We are aware of the labor issues. We do not accept that we were in any way hindering the opportunities for workers to vote in a completely neutral, transparent manner.
They voted and the result is I think yesterday they voted if my knowledge is correct and they decided not to become unionized. We have today in our system out of 700,000 employees worldwide in the Coca Cola system, 140,000 system employees represented by unions that we have nothing against employees becoming unionized and neither do our bottlers. I just want that to be clear. Otherwise, we wouldn't be able to operate with 140,000 and we operate fine. But it would not be appropriate for me to discuss from this platform specific labor matters that you've mentioned in Indonesia and in Northern New England from the floor of this meeting.
But we are happy to continue our dialogue. And I know that the CEO of Coca Cola Northern New England offered to meet with Sue Longley, your successor, Ron. And we will continue to talk and we will continue to make inroads in the spirit of collaboration. And by no means, we adhere to every form of human rights in every country where we operate, in every community we operate. Let me just again stress that.
So we appreciate what you raised. We can't address it, those details from this at this meeting. This is not the appropriate venue, but we will continue to address your concerns in the spirit of collaboration. Let me go to another question, one over here.
Mr. Chairman, may I introduce Brad DuPree.
Good morning, Mr. Chairman, and thank you. I'm a shareowner and have 2 little girls, so I'm hopeful about the long term prospects of the stock and the dividend. Are you willing to talk about the prospects for the stock? And can you comment on the future of the dividend as well?
Thank you, Brad. Obviously we can't make predictions. Over the past decade or so since 2,008, I think Sam mentioned the numbers. We returned $91,000,000,000 in shareholder value plus the market cap of the company grew by another $88,000,000,000 over the past decade, in addition to the $91,000,000,000 So dollars And the past is never an indication of the future, but I have every confidence that the best years are ahead. We have a great track record of paying dividends.
We've paid quarterly dividends since 2019 2020. We've increased dividends in each of the last 57, I think, years. And I think that we have a very strong foundation from where the company is moving ahead. And that's all we can say related to and we have the bottling business of the company, which is a really important metric in terms of ingredient of the engineering for this company is in the strongest ever position it's been in the best ever hands that it's been. And the leadership of the company is in tremendous hands, the best leadership going forward.
And therefore, I have every confidence that the best years ahead. Thank you for your question. Mr. Rogers, you asked me if you
would love to I surely would like to see a doctor here ask a question and also the woman from Mexico and call on them.
We will call on them as we see fit. But if you have anything else to say, please.
Yes. I want to back up my comrades from the labor unions. When we talk about Coca Cola and workers' rights and human rights, I'll go back to the IUF because I get their reports. It seems that respecting labor unions and workers' rights doesn't seem to be on Coca Cola's list of priorities. In fact, the IUF has dubbed Coca Cola, if I'm correct, a serial human rights offender.
Human rights abuses are accumulating at The Coca Cola Company's facilities in Indonesia, Haiti, the Philippines, the USA and Ireland. I just had people from Ireland come in here to talk to me about what's going on there with the concentrate plants. Also, I have to bring up again, these serious issues of Coca Cola's complicity and the kidnapping, torture and murder of union leaders in Guatemala and Colombia has not been dealt with. Now, Mr. Kent, I appreciate the opportunity we've had sitting down.
We've had good discussions to try to resolve some of the issues that I've raised. Mr. Quincy is now going to be on the hot seat, okay, because Mr. Quincy coming out of Mexico, there are serious issues in Mexico and Latin America, and now he's the head of the company. We have to deal with the angel alvarado issue of our human rights abuse that happened to him some years ago when he refused to violate the law at the direction of Coca Cola under the auspices of Mr.
Quincy. I also have to I've got 29 seconds, I have to remember, remember the great ILO investigation, the International Labor Organization was going to do an independent investigation of the human rights abuses in Colombia with Sonaltonal. That was a lie. It was a lie promoted by Neville Isdiel and mister Kent, you yourself. You still will not admit that that was a phony, phony investigation that never took place and never had a chance to taking place.
So I just wanted to raise that. Good luck to you and your future. Mr. Quinton, you'll be hearing from me.
Thank you. Look, if my memory is correct, you raised the same very similar issues about Angel Alvarado, about Mexico, in not last year because we missed you last year, but the year before and nothing could be further from the truth of those allegations. We do just there is just no ground to any of those allegations. We've talked about them, you and I, in a different environment, sitting down around the table and we just believe that none of those allegations are true. As regards the IUF, we are going to keep sitting down and talking and we have we view our relationship as being positive and something that we continue to keep going forward trying to solve some of our differences through discussion, dialogue and trying to see common platforms together.
Mr. Ron, you have a point?
I think you know who I am. Yes, I mean clearly that's true. We have worked I think hard and successfully over 13, 14 years to resolve
some of those issues. But
they are stacking up again, and that's a concern to us. The international human rights framework that the company claims to publicly and proudly be compliant with has also evolved over those years. However, given the company's constantly repeated assertion that you are now not able to influence bottlers in the system, I would ask you this question. To what degree have your franchising arrangements kept up with the challenges of that changing human rights framework? Your human rights report in 2017 started with the claim that standards laid out in it applied across, and I quote, our 800 factories.
However, it ends with a significantly weaker statement that you merely expect bottlers to respect international human and workplace rights. A mere expectation cannot reflect the extent of your obligation to the 700,000 workers you speak of in the system. I would also suggest that if the business model, the contractual arrangements and the management tools they provide don't work for those human rights issues, why would anyone have faith in them working for other issues around, for example, environment, plastics and even issues around branding and marketing? If you claim, however, that those contractual arrangements do work for those other issues, why have similar contractual obligations not been effectively written into those arrangements to strengthen your ability to remedy the substantial human rights risks that the Coca Cola Company faces around the world? Thank you.
Thank you. First, we see eye to eye with all our bottlers related to issues of adhering to the highest standards of human rights. Clear. However, bottlers are independent companies run by independent leaders, leadership teams and not everything that can be dictated to bottlers because they are independent companies, some of them public companies. We do see eye to eye on the very important issues of adhering to human rights of the principles of the highest ethical standards, all of those, but recognize please that they are independent companies.
And again, we work with you all the time to influence, fair influence to bring matters to a better place with us being in the middle of the table. That we see as our role. And I think going forward, we will continue. And just like I mentioned, the CEO of Northern New Coca Cola Northern New England that's going to that's accepted to meet with Sue is a part and parcel of all of these. And do not underestimate, please, our resolve in wanting to basically collaborate and to try and resolve some of the issues.
We will not we will there will be things that we will agree to disagree. That's just a fact of life. It just happens. But we respect you as an organization. We work with you as an organization and we will continue to do that.
Let's see. We have I'll take a question from 5 back there because I haven't we haven't gone back there. Mr. Chairman, may I introduce Alexa Diane Kaczmarski.
Thank you. I would like to yield my time to Doctor. Esperanza Saron, if I can.
You cannot. If you can't just get up and give a proxy to someone else. That's not part of the rules of the meeting, please.
No problem. I have a question. Mr. Chair, my name is Alexa Kaczmarski. I'm representing hundreds of thousands of members of the non profit Corporate Accountability.
I'm also here with public health experts from Latin America, as Mr. Rogers mentioned earlier. We, along with organizations across the globe, are calling for Coke to stop interfering in public health policy making, such as soda taxes. The American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Heart Association have both recommended and called for soda taxes to decrease consumption of sugary beverages that are increasingly linked diet related diseases. So why is the Coca Cola Corporation spending 1,000,000 lobbying against policies?
Thank you. Well, 1st and foremost, we adopted guiding principles in 2016 that helped define our approach to health and well-being orientated research and also engagement with 3rd parties. We adopted those principles back in 2016. And those principles include our decision that we will not provide all of the funding for any well-being specific scientific research. We will only provide financial support transparently if a non Coca Cola entity bears at least half of the research costs.
So and we also do not pay third parties to increase awareness of well-being scientific research. We've adopted those policies. We don't adhere to know everything. We don't adhere to and we are always flexible to keep amending and improving and moving forward. So take that in that vein and we will continue nothing stays constant.
Everything is changing and we change according to that. So we're not in any way or form funding the kind of research that you just mentioned. And we have very clear policies in place. James, anything to add on that? I guess
the other thing that's worth saying is, obviously, we as we talked about earlier, see that we have to take action in the sense of helping to reduce sugar consumption, particularly over consumption by people. Muzdhar talked about it the context of the Board resolution. We're very focused on that, whether it's reformulations, whether it's smaller packages, whether it's innovation in products with less calories, and we made a tremendous amount of progress. Mudar talked about some of the statistics of sugar reduction. When it comes to public policy, as we talked about, we don't get involved with funding the research or pushing out the research.
What we do have a point of view on is that very narrow taxes based over any one category, whether that be sugared sparkling or any other category in an industry such as food and beverages, where there's a high degree of substitution is going to create the health outcome that's being sought after. There's a lot of research out there, lots of research that's not funded or supported by the industry, independent public health research, and it's very difficult to see where the narrow taxes are generating a health benefit. Broader taxes, we have supported, whether they're broad based, whether it be across all products high in fat, salt and sugar or sugar products in general, because in the end, behavior is only going to be changed if it affects a significant portion of the basket. If only only a tiny sliver, It's not going to generate the health outcome and that's kind of why we do what we do.
Thank you. I think we'll take one more question back there, number 6. We haven't gone to the back yet. Yeah.
Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, we have Denise Hendrix.
Thank you.
First of all, Muhtar, thank you for your passion and your leadership. And one of the issues that you've been very passionate about is women empowerment. And I'd like to know what motivates you to be so into supporting this issue?
Thank you. It was just a simple truth back in 2,008. We looked at who were the shoppers for Coca Cola. Predominantly, the numbers came back globally about that and the numbers said 67% of the global shoppers for Coca Cola products were women consumers. And then we looked at internally in the company, where are we in women's leadership and there was a complete dichotomy, discord.
The numbers were in the low teens in terms of senior management, in terms of mid level, in terms of the pipeline. So we went to work on a program to improve the diversity and the gender equality of women leadership and women executives in the Coca Cola Company because it made so much sense. If shoppers are 67% women and only 15% of your senior leadership team is made up of women leaders, That can't be right. We're leaving huge talent off the table. And so we went to work, created a Women's Leadership Council.
I became the honorary chair of that. And over the years, it's a journey. We haven't concluded. We continue to progress. The numbers are now in the high 30s for executive leadership.
The numbers are much higher for pipeline and mid level. And this is not just here in the United States. I'm talking global numbers. And we still have a lot of work to do. In the bottling area, I think we have a lot of work to do in this area, continue to add a lot to them.
But I have I know one thing, the algebra for me is very clear. You improve gender equality and the business gets better. You empower women in communities, the communities get stronger and better. That to me is a very constant algebra. And in past here in this annual meeting, I've received a question.
What is the benefit to me as a share owner of your 5 by 20 program, women, 5,000,000 women entrepreneurs, the largest program of its kind undertaken by a commercial enterprise to date. Goldman Sachs had a program and every program by the way has got value of gold. So I don't mean to say anything negative about any program. I think every program has the value of gold in the world. But the Goldman Sachs program was 10,000.
Ours is 5,000,000 women entrepreneurs, different programs. All of them are good. But the value is very simple. You saw a women in Nigeria became a Coca Cola customer, a retailer, 1 of the 2,700,000 because of what we did. We identify them with the women with NGOs.
We give them basic training in finance, stock rotation, retail, hygiene, and we link them up to microcredit and off they go. And they go and when they get bigger and then they add some meat to the bone, they go and hire more women. That's how the system works. And so that lady who became an entrepreneur, a Coca Cola selling outlet in Nigeria sells many other products, sells chips for sell cards, sells other beverages, sells confectionery, sells chocolate, sells many other products, sells household products, but they retain a loyalty to our brands because that's who put them into business. That's who basically created an opportunity for them.
That's the value that you cannot put money on, a value to our long term value to our system. They become distributors. Again, they have a loyalty to our brands when they become distributors. They become retailers, they have a loyalty. They get involved in restaurants, their own restaurants, small little restaurants with 3, 4, 5 tables, they have a loyalty.
That's the value. And I think we see that we're going to we're on track to achieve our goal, that hugely challenging goal that we set for ourselves in 2010 for $5,000,000 We've achieved so far $3,200,000 And by the end, when it's December 31, 2020, we will have reached, I know the number of $5,000,000 So we're very proud of that program. And then when that finishes, we'll keep going and launch new programs, I'm sure and certain because there's so much value for us in this endeavor. So no, no, no, that was it that you've spoken twice. Now it's time for you to sit down.
No, the lady behind you said that she would like to speak on behalf of her and then she spoke herself. So that subject is covered. We respect everyone in this room. You had the chance to speak twice. Now, Mr.
Rogers, I ask you to please sit down. I am leaving, I am going out feeling very good. Thank you. Thank you. Please sit down.
That concludes our Q and A session. And essentially, we've come to the end of our meeting. And what the polls are now closed. If you have a ballot, please raise your hand so that they can be collected. For those of you share owners that plan to visit our world of Coca Cola as our guests, I hope you have a fun memorable day as always.
And as I close this meeting and officially retire as your Chairman. Again, I could not be more excited about the future. Thank you very much and have a great day.