Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola . . . ‘was far from making Pemberton either rich or even debt free. When he fell ill the next year, he sold two-thirds of his joint-ownership of his company for the princely sum of $283.24. The tired and disillusioned Pemberton would almost certainly have taken his drink to the grave.’ As it is, Coke’s founder went without it. He died penniless a year later.
Danone
Danone was founded by a man more interested in curing orphans than keeping the middle classes healthy. He named his extremely unpopular product – and so the company – after his son.
General Mills
General Mills, world famous as the creator of Wheaties, Cheerios and Betty Crocker, was once the world’s biggest toy company
Kimberley-Clark
Kimberley-Clark invented Cellucotton by accident, and although it found a highly valuable use for the material as a constituent of dressings for servicemen in the Second World War, when the war ended, it was deemed surplus to requirements. In fact, it rescued the company in true breakthrough style. How? See inside.
PepsiCo
Essentially, PeposiCo went bust three times and the man who first devised the drink left the business in disgust. PepsiCo became America’s biggest food and beverage company
Unilever
Once owned a saw-mill, a coal-mine, a limestone quarry, a paper mill and an engineering firm.