Cliff and Arlene Kluge of Ringgold, Georgia, claim they have the secret recipe of the world’s popular soft drink Coca-Cola, and are selling it on eBay for $5 million!
Cliff Kluge, a pilot, and his wife Arlene Bridges, a small business owner, said they purchased several old boxes of papers and letters at an antique sale around four years ago for about $100. And in the pile of yellowing papers they found what could be a 1943 recipe for Coca-Cola.
“Whoever had typed this letter had seen the original recipe,” Cliff Kluge told ABC News. “The letter always references Coke and products and stuff.”
“We believe it is definitely related to Coca-Cola,” he added.
The couple now have the document for sale on eBay, asking for an opening bid of $5 million, and a “Buy it now” option which sells the recipe for $15 million. The online auction ends up tonight at 6:10 p.m.
“When I saw this I just thought it was interesting, so I folded it up, stuck it in my purse and carried it around for a couple of weeks showing my friends,” said Arlene Kluge.
Cliff Kluge showed ABC the document with the key ingredients blocked out. He said he tried to reach out to Coca-Cola when he put the recipe on eBay.
“They told me they would call me back in seven to 10 days and they never called me back,” Kluge said.
Coca-Cola representatives denied that this is the original recipe, saying that the one and only copy of their 19th century recipe is safely locked in a vault at the company’s Atlanta headquarters.
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“At least once a year, somebody shows up and says, ‘I have the original formula for Coca-Cola. How much do you want to pay me for it?’ ” Coke’s chief archivist Ted Ryan told ABC News.
“Well, I don’t need to pay them anything for it because we have the only real one.”