Diet Coke disappeared from shelves. For many factory workers across India, so did their work

About this episode

The episode discusses the impact of the US-Israel war on Iran on the availability of Diet Coke in India and the resulting job losses in the beverage industry.

Diet Coke disappeared from Bangalore's shelves, and a teenager's frustrated Reddit post accidentally explained why: the Strait of Hormuz. When the US-Israel war on Iran began in February, fuel shipments slowed. Aluminium furnaces went cold. PET resin prices jumped 75%. At least 25 plants shut completely. In one Odisha industrial belt alone, 700 of 1,500 workers lost their jobs. But the war only made an existing problem worse — India had already tightened import rules on aluminium cans, leaving beverage companies dangerously dependent on West Asian buffer stock. The shortage was always coming. The war just decided that it was now. Tune in. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Topics covered

• supply chain
• job loss
• beverage industry
• import regulations
• geopolitical impact

Keywords

• Diet Coke
• India
• job loss
• aluminium cans
• supply chain
• US-Israel war
• Bangalore
• Odisha

Mentioned in this episode

Products: Diet Coke

Places: India, Bangalore, Odisha

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