Coca-Cola Faces Major Shareholder Protest Over GE Ingredients

Coke Scion Joins Protest Against Genetically Engineered Ingredients
Big investor Wardlaw helps to sponsor shareholder resolution

TOM ABATE
Monday, April 3, 2000
©2000 San Francisco Chronicle

URL:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2000/04/03/BU91580.DTL

One of the scions of the Coca-Cola Co. fortune has added his voice to the
chorus of protesters who want U.S. firms to quit using genetically
engineered ingredients, or to at least label their products if they do.

William C. Wardlaw III, grandson of one of the first investors in Coke
stock, has co-sponsored a shareholder resolution asking the company to stop
using genetic foods so long as questions remain about the environmental and
health effects of the new technology.

Shareholder protest resolutions are generally floated by investors with
tiny holdings, but Wardlaw controls 2,020,682 shares, worth roughly $98
million.

``It's the first time I've ever put through any sort of shareholder
resolution,'' said Wardlaw, whose grandfather was one of the investors who
helped Atlanta banker Ernest Woodruff take Coke public in 1919.



Wardlaw's protest is similar to six other resolutions that religious
groups, acting through New York's Interfaith Center on Corporate
Responsibility, have filed with McDonald's, General Mills, PepsiCo, Quaker
Oats, Sara Lee and Procter & Gamble.



Protesters in Europe, and more recently in the United States, have said
agribusiness firms moved too quickly to patent and sell bioengineered
crops, which contain pesticides that may make them more profitable to grow
but could pose unknown health or environmental risks.

Wardlaw said he was persuaded to add his prestige to the protest by his
longtime friend John Harrington, a board member of Global Exchange, the San
Francisco nonprofit group that promotes alternatives to corporate practices.

``We don't really expect these resolutions to pass, but they start to
influence public attitudes,'' Harrington said.

For the record, Coke management is urging shareholders to reject Wardlaw's
proposal, saying that there is no scientific basis to think modified foods
are unsafe and that a ban on such products would tie the company's hands --
Coke buys corn syrup by the tanker-full.

Labeling, Coke says, would mislead and confuse consumers.

Wardlaw's resolution, with arguments pro and con, can be found at
www.cocacola.com (click on ``Investor Relations,'' then ``Proxy
Statements'' and find pages 36 and 37 of the 2000 proxy).

My thanks to Larry Crooks, a Richmond resident and Coke shareholder, for
alerting me to this protest.

``I always amuse myself looking through the shareholder proposals,'' said
Crooks, who sees both sides of the debate.

As an engineer, he understands that new technologies often have bugs that
don't get discovered until products hit the field. But he doesn't want to
hurt farmers by supporting corporate bans on buying altered foods.

So Crooks voted against the resolution, quoting the common refrain, ``If
you don't want to vote with management, you should sell the stock.''