Published at: 16/10/2024 09:00 PM

(EL NACIONAL, October 23, 1974)

• In October 1974, with gangster methods, a family, allied to many businesses and front men of President Carlos Andrés Pérez, killed medium-sized soft drink industries to take over the market.
• Mafia practices reached their peak when manufacturers of other brands refused to raise prices under Pepsi Cola's threats and blackmail to remove them from the market.
• Then, the Pepsi Cola bands, owned by Diego Cisneros (1911-1980), ended the existence of bottles from other brands, which dealt a low blow, adding an additional cost to replace new glass bottles.
• In just under a month, 720,000 bottles from the manufacturers of Grapette were destroyed, delivery trucks of this and other brands were overturned, and in some cases their drivers were shot up.
• This criminal action led to the closure of at least five bottling companies and the loss of thousands of jobs.
• This was what the then president Carlos Andrés Pérez called: “Democracy with Energy”.
• At that time, an average of 120 million bottles of soft drinks were consumed in Venezuela per year. About 9 bottles per inhabitant.
• The history of these practices dates back to 1939, when newcomer Diego Cisneros obtained the franchise for the manufacture and distribution of Pepsi Cola.
• Its carbonated formula was very watery for those who were used to other better-tasting ones: Grapette, Orange Crush, Cola Dumbo, A1 and even the predominant Coca Cola.
• Then Don Diego, Betancourt's business ally for the Adeco triennial period (1945-1948), applied the gangster methods learned in his native Cuba.
• Cisneros Sr. issued instructions to destroy, however necessary, the bottles of other competing soft drinks. Their agents picked up the full caves in warehouses, supermarkets and supplies, robbed trucks and overturned their loads. They even went so far as to take over the competing warehouses to break them with lobbies.
• These mercenary gangs were also dedicated to assaulting the headquarters of transport unions, to prevent their meetings, almost always in the company of police officers authorized by Betancourt.
• After more than 50 years, to date, the consumption of sugary soft drinks has been partly displaced by water.
• Now the bottling war is about the monopoly of the best waters. For this purpose, they are capable of DRYING all aquifers and springs. Seize the market without the slightest investment to reforest the headwaters of hydrographic basins. Because the sustainable nature of the water business is to monopolize and exploit it, not to strengthen the sources that produce it.
• Although Pepsi Cola is now in the hands of Grupo Polar, the second generation of the Cisneros family owns the Coca Cola franchise.
• A third generation of this breed threatens to return to their powers by bringing in a multi-million dollar vulture fund to acquire potentially successful companies at the price of a skinny chicken.
• This is Eduardo Cisneros, grandson of the bottlebreaker, who founded a company called 3B1 Guacamaya Fund LP, with capital of 200 million dollars, to acquire cheap assets in Venezuela.

Mazo News Team