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> Shannon You in particular had access to some of the most closely held information at the company: a set of detailed chemical recipes for the 2-micron-thick pl

> Shannon You in particular had access to some of the most closely held information at the company: a set of detailed chemical recipes for the 2-micron-thick plastic liners inside the beverage cans Coke filled and sold. A federal prosecutor would later describe these as the company’s “other secret formulas.” Developed at great expense, they were likely even more important than the theatrically guarded recipe for Coke’s namesake soft drink—that sugary, acidic brew would, without a liner, devour the metal of its can. Soda cans have a mm thin coating that I already knew about. But my big takeaway from this article: That coating is non-trivial to get right and, if gotten wrong, will react with the beverage inside the can. It’s surprising to me that regulators allow this to be kept a trade secret. I understand using patents to give them a monopoly. But knowing what I know now, after reading that article, I don’t trust a drink coming from these cans. There’s no way for consumers to review the product for safety. I always assumed these containers were able to be audited by consumer watch groups and advocacy groups.

hwillis 3y ago
> It’s surprising to me that regulators allow this to be kept a trade secret. The FDA protects trade secrets and more broadly "any commercially valuable plan, formula, or device". Just because something is a trade secret doesn't mean you don't have to tell the FDA about it. That said, it's not like you really have to prove something is safe before adding it to food. > There’s no way for consumers to review the product for safety. Disagree. Or rather, knowing what the coating is does not make you any safer. What it should be is very different from what it actually is and what is inadvertently included with it. 3rd party analysis is the only thing that actually tells you what is in something. It is useful to have public listings of things for people who want to categorically avoid BPA or MSG or whatever, but that's really a different issue from safety. If it crosses over into a real safety concern, like a nut allergy, trade secrets are overridden. I (personally) don't think it's good to say that any safety concern (in this case, a hypothetical one!) can override trade secrets. I don't think it's unreasonable to disagree with that though.
DwnVoteHoneyPot 3y ago
The article mentions chemistry vs. performance. You can test the performance of the material (reactivity to contents of can, BPA leaching) without knowing how it's made or the secrets. Shannon Yu kept asking for the detailed chemistry when others in position usually only care about the performance.

hwillis 3y ago

> It’s surprising to me that regulators allow this to be kept a trade secret. The FDA protects trade secrets and more broadly "any commercially valuable plan, formula, or device". Just because something is a trade secret doesn't mean you don't have to tell the FDA about it. That said, it's not like you really have to prove something is safe before adding it to food. > There’s no way for consumers to review the product for safety. Disagree. Or rather, knowing what the coating is does not make you any safer. What it should be is very different from what it actually is and what is inadvertently included with it. 3rd party analysis is the only thing that actually tells you what is in something. It is useful to have public listings of things for people who want to categorically avoid BPA or MSG or whatever, but that's really a different issue from safety. If it crosses over into a real safety concern, like a nut allergy, trade secrets are overridden. I (personally) don't think it's good to say that any safety concern (in this case, a hypothetical one!) can override trade secrets. I don't think it's unreasonable to disagree with that though.

DwnVoteHoneyPot 3y ago

The article mentions chemistry vs. performance. You can test the performance of the material (reactivity to contents of can, BPA leaching) without knowing how it's made or the secrets. Shannon Yu kept asking for the detailed chemistry when others in position usually only care about the performance.