Coca-Cola says local beverages safe

JAKARTA (JP): Soft drink producer PT Coca-Cola Indonesia assured on Thursday that its products manufactured in the country were safe for consumption amid fears sparked by outbreaks of illness in several European countries.

"All of Coca-Cola's products in Indonesia are safe for consumption and have nothing to do with the recent withdrawal of Coca-Cola's products in Belgium," the company said in a statement.

Drinks manufactured locally are from local production plants and made according to guaranteed quality standards, it claimed.

"Thus, the public does not need to be discouraged from enjoying the taste of the world's most popular soft drink," the company said.

Alarm has gripped several European countries following incidents last week in which about 100 people in Belgium and Luxembourg, mostly schoolchildren, became ill after consuming the soft drinks.

Belgium and Luxembourg imposed a ban on all Coca-Cola products in the aftermath of the incidents, followed by France and the Netherlands.

AFP reported France ordered 50 million cans of soft drinks made by Coca-Cola pulled from store shelves.

Sales of all Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola Light, Sprite and Fanta cans manufactured in the northern city of Dunkirk from January this year were suspended. The plant produced drinks for the Belgian market but French authorities fear some may have been shipped back to France.

The company said its Antwerp factory used the wrong type of CO2, the gas that gives Coca-Cola its fizz, making the drink taste spoiled, and that fungicide contamination at its Dunkirk factory caused a foul odor in soda cans.

Coca-Cola chairman and CEO Douglas Ivester in a statement on Wednesday regretted the recent problems caused to European consumers and pledged the firm would take "all necessary steps" to guarantee the safety of its products.

"We deeply regret any problems encountered by our European consumers in the past few days," Ivester said in the statement.

"For 113 years our success has been based on the trust that consumers have in that quality. That trust is sacred to us.

"I want to reassure our consumers, customers and government officials in Europe that The Coca-Cola Company is taking all necessary steps to ensure that all our products meet the highest quality standards," he said.(jsk)