Coca-Cola and Ice Cream: A Taste of Home in Wartime India

In 1941, Robert Woodruff, President of Coca-Cola, pledged that every man in uniform could get a bottle of Coke for five cents, 'wherever he is and whatever it costs the Company.'

This promise became part of an extraordinary military supply operation during World War II. Coca-Cola employees traveled with U.S. forces, bottling equipment was moved overseas, and the Army's Post Exchange system distributed the drink to servicemen.

In India, shortages of glass bottles led to an 'honour system,' where each U.S. service member could get one bottle a day. By 1944, Coca-Cola's wartime bottling network in India included facilities in Calcutta, Delhi, Chabua, and Ledo in Assam.

The company established two plants in Calcutta, one in Kidderpore and another in central Calcutta. An American ice-cream plant was also set up in the area that is now Chandni Chowk Market. The Army's ice cream story was less about one branded product than about keeping frozen food available in a tropical war area.

The scale of the operation became clearer in an April 1945 India-Burma Theatre Roundup report, which described an Army cold-storage warehouse in Calcutta where thousands of tons of frozen beef, chicken, and ice cream were stored for troops in both the city and forward areas. Workers dealt with temperatures between 10 and 16 degrees below zero, while outside temperatures approached 100 degrees Fahrenheit.