Everyone has a Coke story, Bill Clinton told an audience of several hundred at the Clinton Presidential Center on Friday.
The former president -- alongside Muhtar Kent, chief executive of the Coca-Cola Co. -- was on hand to open "Coca-Cola: An American Original," the 42nd temporary exhibit at the center in Little Rock.
Clinton, the 42nd president, had several Coke stories, ranging from personal to professional.
After he moved from Hope to Hot Springs, Clinton's father opened a Buick dealership near a Coca-Cola plant.
"I can remember when I was a little kid spending endless hours riveted to those bottles going through automated filling, watching the machine put the caps on the bottles," he said. "We never had any kind of automated manufacturing before that. It was fascinating."
When he was 13, Clinton filled a Coca-Cola vending machine while working at a grocery store.
"I still remember when they changed the retail price from a nickel to six cents," he said. "Because I lived in Hot Springs, we were probably the only town in the entire United States of America that was happy about that because one of our major employers ... made those little machines that took the coins," he added, referring to the fact that the machines had to be upgraded to take the change.
And later in life, Clinton partnered with the company on 32 Clinton Foundation initiatives. According to the foundation's website, the company has donated between $5 and $10 million.
The company has committed to reducing the number of calories it ships to schools, provided water to the Middle East and Africa, and used its supply chain expertise to ship vital drugs, Clinton said.
"You want a supply chain that goes everywhere?" Clinton said. "There is a Coca-Cola everywhere."
The company sells 1.9 billion servings per day in 270 nations under 500 different brands, Kent said. In 1886 -- the year Coke was invented -- it sold about nine servings per day.
Kent also told the audience that Coca-Cola's contoured bottle was patented 100 years ago this month.
"In 1915, there was a lot of imitators, so the Coca-Cola company asked its packaging partners to create a bottle that would let people know they were buying a genuine article," he told the audience. "When you held it at night, touched it, you would know immediately it was a Coca-Cola bottle."
The presidential center's temporary exhibit features a 13-bottle chronology, including an original glass bottle produced in 1902, a replica of the prototype contour bottle created by the Root Glass Company in 1915, and a prototype of the aluminum bottle that debuted in 2008.
The exhibit also showcases pop art by Andy Warhol -- including videos, photographs, prints and other original works -- and folk art by Howard Finster, who incorporated the Coca-Cola bottle into dozens of his pieces.
A portion is also dedicated to American presidents and their connection to the brand.
Kent said Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, who later became president, requested Coca-Cola for American troops in Europe during World War II, which laid the groundwork for the company's worldwide expansion.
Clinton and his wife, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton, are part of the company's legacy as well, Kent said.
"As we built our business in the former Soviet Union, we had some very special guests visit our new bottling plant there -- then-President Clinton and perhaps future president Clinton," he told a cheering audience.
Metro on 11/07/2015