The Coke Can Liner Caper
By Drake Bennett and Jordan Robertson, Bloomberg Businessweek, May 14, 2023
“Shannon You was a good chemist, a bad colleague and a thief.
She planned to use the IP (Intellectual Property) she’d stolen to start a company in China.
And it might have worked if she hadn’t herself been duped.”
File this story in either of two places: Nothing is as simple as it appears. There is no honor among thieves.
The can holding Coke, or beer, or soup, or any other product might seem to be just a simple piece of metal. However, the substance inside the can, Coke in the case of this story of commercial thievery, can react with the metal of the can. This could damage the can, change the taste, appearance, efficacy, or shelf life of the produce in the can. What stands between this happening and the product being delivered to you just the way you want and expect it often is the chemically produced lining inside the can. These formulations vary by product, but all of them are proprietary to the companies producing them, just as the Coke formula is proprietary to The Coca Cola Company.
This Bloomberg Businessweek article reads like an international detective story involving shady individuals and companies, countries including the U. S., China, and Italy, and the FBI. It also provides an education about how science, in this case chemistry, touches our lives, even though we may not realize it. And it illustrates once again how even the smartest people will succumb to greed and in the end trip themselves up. w/c
Writer / Critic 