Hacker News Reader

Comment by subroutine | Hacker News Reader

In the video, coke was run through several mass spec tests, as was the test formula for comparison.

But the difference is Pepsi would also have had dedicated laboratories and food scientists, scientifically controlled exhaustive testing and unlimited access to any ingredient they wanted. Thus one would expect Pepsi's testing to have had much finer granularity than in this YouTube video).

With millions of dollars tied up in just a few percent of sales you can bet Pepsi knows just about as much as Coke does about Coke's ingredients (and vice versa of course).

The research for both companies is more about the fine minutiae—keeping an optimal differentiation between the two products more than treading on each other's territory. Trampling over each other for market share is done through advertising, not by making their products the same.

Pepsi probably also has had access to Coke's supply chain and long ago acquired samples of various inputs before mixing, which would make analysis easier. The two companies know they're competing mostly on production management and brand image, not secret ingredients. A decade or so ago a secretary from Coke tried to sell some of the company's "secrets" to Pepsi. Instead of jumping on the opportunity to get Coke's secrets, they contacted Coke's legal department and the FBI, with the three working together to prosecute her.

Right, both keep up the pretense as it's in their interests to do so.

Or they could also just hire ex-Coke employees who might have been involved in some sourcing of the ingredients (eg when setting up new factories).

Most trade secrets aren't really all that secret.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com