Muslim countries’ local sodas see boost amid Coke and Pepsi boycott over

Coca-Cola and rival PepsiCo spent hundreds of millions of dollars over decades building demand for their soft drinks in Muslim-majority countries including Egypt to Pakistan.

Now, both face a challenge from local sodas in those countries due to consumer boycotts targeting the brands as symbols of America, and by extension Israel, at a time of war in Gaza.

In Egypt, sales of Coke have cratered this year, while local brand V7 exported three times as many bottles of its own cola in the Middle East and the wider region than last year. In Bangladesh, Coke launched an advertising campaign against the boycott. But after a public outcry over perceived insensitivity, Coke pulled the ad in June and apologized. 

And across the Middle East, Pepsi’s rapid growth evaporated after the Israel-Hamas war started in October.

Pakistani corporate executive Sunbal Hassan kept Coke and Pepsi off her wedding menu in Karachi in April. She said she didn’t want to feel her money had reached the tax coffers of the United States, Israel’s staunchest ally.

“With the boycott, one can play a part by not contributing to those funds,” Hassan said. Instead, she served her wedding guests Pakistani brand Cola Next.

She’s not alone. While market analysts say it’s hard to put a dollar figure on lost sales and PepsiCo and Coca-Cola still have growing businesses in several countries in the Middle East, Western beverage brands suffered a seven per cent sales decline in the first half of the year across the region, market researcher NielsenIQ says.

Local soda brands see sales boost

In Pakistan, Krave Mart, a leading delivery app, has seen local cola rivals like Cola Next and Pakola soar in popularity to become about 12 per cent of the soft drinks category, founder Kassim Shroff told Reuters this month. Before the boycott, the figure was closer to 2.5 per cent.

Shroff says Pakola, which is ice-cream soda flavoured, made up most of the purchases before the boycott. He declined to provide figures for Coca-Cola and PepsiCo sales.

Consumer boycotts date back at least as far as an 18th century anti-slavery sugar protest in Britain. The strategy was used in the 20th century to fight apartheid in South Africa and has been widely wielded against Israel through the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.

WATCH | All about calls for divestment: 

Protesters at universities across Canada and the U.S. are demanding an end to Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza amid a growing humanitarian crisis — and want their schools to divest from companies they say profit from the conflict. But what does the process of that divestment look like?

Many consumers shunning Coca-Cola and PepsiCo cite U.S. support of Israel over decades, including in the current war with Hamas.

“Some…