Three Chinese consumers who claim to have seen objects such as black threads and worms in Sprite, a beverage produced by Coca-Cola, recently went to Coca-Cola's headquarters in Shanghai to ask for an explanation and compensation from the company.

The three are said to come from Beijing, Shandong, and Xinjiang. According to local media, Jiao, the Xinjiang consumer, purchased two bottles of Sprite from a Xinjiang local supermarket called Jia Jia Le in December 2006, but found one of the bottles of beverage contained black threads. He then filed a lawsuit against Coca-Cola in the local court, without opening the bottle. The court sentenced the supermarket and Coca-Cola Xinjiang to pay him CNY5,000 in compensation in addition to the CNY9.2 that the goods cost and transportation expenses of CNY45, and ordered Coca-Cola to make an apology to him after verifying his appeal. However, Jiao was dissatisfied with the amount of compensation, so he decided to go to protest at Coca-Cola's headquarters in Shanghai together with Gao and Ji who are from Beijing and Shandong, respectively, and had had similar experiences to his.

In addition to an financial compensation of about CNY300,000 each, the three want Coca-Cola to give them a satisfactory explanation on the contaminants in the drink.

Chen Yi, the director Coca-Cola's public relations department, told local media that Coca-Cola is happy for consumers to use the law to protect their rights, and they will solve the problem according to the relevant laws and regulations of China. However, they regret that the consumers claimed such a large amount of compensation.

Coca-Cola said that the consumers did not allow its staff to examine the allegedly contaminated beverages, so there was no way for them to know where the beverages were from and why there was a problem. That's why they failed to reach an agreement with the consumers. The company added that when it spot-checked some samples from the same batch of products and tested them, the results indicated that there was no problem with the quality of that batch of products.

This comes at a time when Coca-Cola is getting mixed press in China over its recent investment plans. Its plans to invest USD2 billion in the country over the next three years for research and development, bottling, and distribution facilities are generally welcomed. However its USD2.5 billion takeover bid for Huiyuan Juice Group, the country's leading maker of pure fruit juices and nectars, has led to criticism over the possible sale of a prominent national brand name to a foreign company.

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