Cola Cao is a sugary

chocolate Chocolate is a food made from roasted and ground cacao seed kernels that is available as a liquid, solid, or paste, either on its own or as a flavoring agent in other foods. Cacao has been consumed in some form since at least the Olmec civ ...

drink with vitamins and minerals that originated in

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

and is now produced and marketed in several countries. The brand is owned by the

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...

-based company Idilia Foods (formerly Nutrexpa).

History

In 1945, José María Ventura and José Ignacio Ferrero, two brothers-in-law from the Gracia neighborhood of Barcelona, Spain, created a soluble cocoa called Cola Cao. In 1962, they began to broadcast their first advertisements on television, which adapted the radio tune to some cartoons. In 1972, Cola Cao was associated for the first time with the slogan "Olympic food", after becoming a sponsor of the Spanish Olympic team at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games. In the 1980s, "Cola Cao VIT" was produced, an instant and enriched version with vitamins of the classic Cola Cao. It went out of production in the late 1980s. In 1988, Cola Cao began sponsoring the Spanish Olympic Committee through the ADO Program, an alliance that continues today. Along the same lines and to promote urban sports, the brand installs what are popularly known as "Cola Cao Circuits" in green areas of a large number of Spanish cities, such as Esplugues de Llobregat and Córdoba, among others. In the mid-nineties, with the slogan the same flavor of Cola Cao with half the calories, a version of Cola Cao without sugar and with sweeteners called "Cola Cao Low in Calories" was launched, which in the mid-2000s was renamed "Cola Cao Light".

Ingredients

Cola Cao is prepared using sugar, processed cocoa, wheat flour and

cola nut The term kola nut usually refers to the seeds of certain species of plant of the genus ''Cola'', placed formerly in the cocoa family Sterculiaceae and now usually subsumed in the mallow family Malvaceae (as subfamily Sterculioideae). These col ...

, and is enriched with vitamins, Calcium and Phosphorus.

Preparation

Cola Cao comes in a powder form which is intended to be mixed with

milk Milk is a white liquid food produced by the mammary glands of mammals. It is the primary source of nutrition for young mammals (including breastfed human infants) before they are able to digest solid food. Immune factors and immune-modula ...

, but can also be mixed with

water Water (chemical formula ) is an Inorganic compound, inorganic, transparent, tasteless, odorless, and Color of water, nearly colorless chemical substance, which is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living ...

soya milk Soya may refer to: Food * Soya bean, or soybean, a species of legume native to East Asia, widely grown for its edible bean * Soya sauce, see soy sauce, a fermented sauce made from soybeans, roasted grain, water and salt Places * Sōya District ...

. It can also be added to breakfast cereal or used as a baking ingredient. In Spain in particular, Cola Cao is a popular accompaniment to breakfast, or dinner.

Advertising

The "Cola Cao song" used to promote the product in 1952 is a nostalgia item. Its first verses are still remembered: "Yo soy aquel negrito del África Tropical / que cultivando cantaba la canción del Cola Cao /..." ("I am that little

black Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white ...

guy from

Tropical Africa Although tropical Africa is mostly familiar to the West for its rainforests, this biogeographic realm of Africa is far more diverse. While the tropics are thought of as regions with hot moist climates, which are caused by latitude and the trop ...

/ who sang the Cola Cao song while cultivating"). The company released a new version of the song in 2020, modifying the lyrics perceived as racist. Cola Cao has been marketed in association with the

Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a vari ...

and other sporting events.

Distribution

Cola Cao in powder form is sold in containers of various sizes, and it is also produced in liquid form that is purveyed in plastic bottles.

Marketing

Cola Cao is exported to various countries such as

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina ( sh, / , ), abbreviated BiH () or B&H, sometimes called Bosnia–Herzegovina and often known informally as Bosnia, is a country at the crossroads of south and southeast Europe, located in the Balkans. Bosnia and H ...

, and China (known as 高乐高 Gao-le-Gao), where Nutrexpa offices are located. It was introduced to Japan (under the name コラカオ),

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...

(under the name Кола Као) and

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders ...

in early 1990s only to be discontinued a few years later, however in 2007 "Cola Cao Chocolate Roll Cakes" manufactured in China are sold at dollar stores. Cola Cao factories have production lines unique to each region: *

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

an market: Factory in

** Cola Cao Original, Light, Turbo, Fiber, Energy, Complete and more. *

South American South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...

market: Factory in

Santiago Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile as well as one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is the center of Chile's most densely populated region, the Santiago Metropolitan Region, whos ...

** Cola Cao Original, Light ** Cola Cao Cereal *

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...

n market: Factory in

Tianjin Tianjin (; ; Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Tientsin (), is a municipality and a coastal metropolis in Northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the nine national central cities in Mainland China, with a total popu ...

, China ** Cola Cao Original, Fruit Flavor ** Cola Cao Roll Cake ** Cola Cao Spread

Online Controversy and Coverage

The companies Nesquik and Cola Cao have been closely compared to each other online. However on March 31st 2016 a

parody A parody, also known as a spoof, a satire, a send-up, a take-off, a lampoon, a play on (something), or a caricature, is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satiric or ironic imitation. Often its sub ...

Cola Cao Twitter page sparked an argument with a parody Spanish

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

page. Cola Cao said about how they "have a song" but questioned what Nesquik has instead, "a talking rabbit". The Nesquik account later swore and commented on the signature ''bits.'' This resulted in the official pages of the two brands along with companies like

Nestlé Nestlé S.A. (; ; ) is a Swiss multinational food and drink processing conglomerate corporation headquartered in Vevey, Vaud, Switzerland. It is the largest publicly held food company in the world, measured by revenue and other metrics, since ...

clarifying the correct and verified company pages. The OCU also compared the two brands to help to close the arguments online directed at which brand is better. They compared the cocoa contents and added fibers of the two brands and according to the OCU concluded that although other companies provided higher quality chocolate sources, Cola Cao placed 4th: higher than Nesquik. People on Twitter and

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Mosk ...

argue about which is better and try to bring everyday evidence to suggest that one company has a new product which makes it better than the next; and this has quickly spread onto the local news. For example, on July 6th 2020

McDonald's McDonald's Corporation is an American multinational fast food chain, founded in 1940 as a restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald, in San Bernardino, California, United States. They rechristened their business as a hambur ...

released the Cola Cao

McFlurry The McFlurry is a brand of flavored ice cream distributed and sold by the American-based international fast food chain McDonald's. History The McFlurry was created by Canada, Canadian McDonald's franchisee Ron McLellan in Bathurst, New Bruns ...

which people have used as arguments against Nesquik, questioning if the company have this or not.

Footnotes

External links

Official website

Official Twitter Page
{{Hot cocoa Energy drinks Chocolate drinks Spanish brands Products introduced in 1946