DUBAI, 15 August 2003 — “Mecca Cola” has commissioned a $6.8-million production and bottling plant in Dubai, with an eye on cornering 10 percent of the regional cola market, a newspaper said yesterday.
Production at the Jebel Ali free zone plant, Mecca Cola’s second bottling plant outside its France-based operations, will run at 384,000 cans per day, Gulf News quoted senior officials saying.
“We feel that Mecca Cola has the potential to grab a sizable share of the overall market,” said Ibrahim Khuri, general manager of Gallery Foods and Beverages, which has won the rights to represent Mecca Cola in the UAE. Part of the brand’s offensive is to donate 10 percent of the proceeds to local charities and another 10 percent to meet the needs of Palestinian children.
Mecca Cola’s inventor, Franco-Tunisian radio journalist Tawfiq Mathluthi, is confident that in troubled times a politicized soft drink will sell in the heart of the Islamic world. The fizzy drink is the Muslim world’s answer to popular US soft drinks,
Mathluthi said earlier this year that annual sales of 200 million bottles in the Middle East are targeted.
