A short history of ColaLife
ColaLife began as an online movement, challenging Coca-Cola – and the world. We wanted to understand how the distribution channels in developing countries that purveyors of fast moving consumer goods such as The Coca-Cola Company rely on, might be harnessed to save children’s lives. Our aim was to improve distribution of a basic, cheap treatment, ORS and Zinc, to stop children dying of diarrhoea and reduce stunting caused by chronic diarrhoea.
Empty shelves at Tiriri health centre in Katine, Uganda | A fully stocked retail outlet
Photo credits: Guardian/Martin Godwin | Simon Berry/ColaLife
ColaLife was the brainchild of Simon Berry and his wife Jane. Simon had the original idea while working on the British Aid programme in 1988. However, no real progress was made until Simon floated the idea on FaceBook in May 2008. After exploring a number of ideas for co-distribution – including removing a bottle from every crate to make space for medicines – Jane proposed designing a kit that would fit into the un-used space between the bottles. That concept was developed by our packaging partners, PI Global, with help from Amcor. The idea went viral. It went on to win numerous design awards and was exhibited and presented all over the world, including in China, Europe, the US, the UK and Israel. It is currently still on display at the Young V&A in London, where it forms part of their permanent collection.
Except… (spoiler) … that idea, although the root of all our learning, as well as a range of important innovative approaches, turned out NOT to be the key enabler of improved access to ORS and Zinc!
The initial ColaLife idea was based on three simple observations:
- You can buy a Coca-Cola almost anywhere you go in the world, even in the most remote parts of developing countries.
- In these same places 1 in 8 children die before their fifth birthday from preventable causes and second biggest cause is dehydration from diarrhoea.
- The health sector has known how to treat diarrhoea for 3 decades but, at the time, 99% of children did not get the recommended treatment: Oral Rehydration Salts (ORS) and Zinc. And even today, barely 10% receive it.
The charity’s name – which caused a stir in health circles – was designed to challenge that iniquity: why is brown fizzy cola available across the world, yet a simple, life-saving medicine is not?
The key issue was a problem of access to a known health solution barring the way to progress. So ‘access’, in all its complexity, is where ColaLife’s work was focussed.
In 2008, with a bit of nudging from the Facebook Group* we set up, and helped by the BBC, the drinks giant responded, with advice, insight, detail, discussion and questions.
But it all turned out to be both more complicated – and easier – than our initial idea: to put a better-designed ORS and Zinc product in the space between bottles in cola crates. That concept went viral. It is still a powerful visual metaphor for our work, which is why we supported the display of the original concept in design museums across the world. But evidence from our trial in Zambia showed it was the gap in the market, not the space between bottles, that was key. How to develop and exploit that gap in the market, without any further help from Coca-Cola at all, became our new mission.
We became an independent UK charity in 2011, and ran a trial in Zambia, co-designed by local actors including the Ministry of Health, from late 2011 until 2013. Known as The ColaLife Operational Trial Zambia (COTZ) it was funded by Johnson & Johnson, DfID and COMESA and produced some astounding results.
From 2013 – 2018, ColaLife worked as a catalyst to help local partners – public, private and NGOs – to scale-up Zambia-wide distribution of the successful Kit Yamoyo (‘Kit of Life’) and its value chain. Academics estimate that 3 lives are saved for every 1,000 kits distributed, whilst thousands more children are protected from stunting due to chronic diarrhoea and poor nutrition. This affects up to 70% of children in some areas, and 40% of Zambian children on average. You can see updates throughout this historic blog and in our academic publications summarised here.
Through out its life, from 2008 to 2024, ColaLife amassed more than 10,000 online supporters, and interest from many global stakeholders. These helped to give a tiny organisation the power to source expertise – and even information sharing – among unlikely partners like WHO, UNICEF, J&J, GSK, Coca-Cola, SABMiller and health agencies across the world.
After the funded work in Zambia came to an end, in 2018, the ColaLife team (still only 2 people, part-time) continued working as change-agents and catalysts. Successes include:
- Writing the ColaLife Playbook – an open source guide to how we work for impact, collaborative partnerships and success.
- Changing the WHO Essential Medicines List, so that it recognises the importance of co-packaging ORS and Zinc.
- Founding the ORS Zinc Co-Pack Alliance, to promote this new recommendation.
- Getting our work published in peer reviewed journals: Two in The BMJ. Global Health Science and Practice, Willey Journal of Management Studies and a number of books, articles and blogs. And a film.
Why did we decide to create these ‘unlikely alliances’ that span the corporate, public and NGO sectors? In order to move from a tiny, voluntary-run campaign to getting something big happening on the ground, we needed serious support from big organisations; to foment real change and avoid ‘business-as-usual’, we wanted to put together some ‘unlikely’ partners. We felt the friction and the exchange of ideas and expertise that happens ‘at the edge’ could help foment change, for good.
Coca-Cola agreed to advise us. Since fizzy drinks are not healthy, our decision to even speak to them was contentious. We decided not to ask for funding, to avoid the inevitable backlash and perceived conflict of interest – but we fought numerous battles of words, for the right to speak to whomever we thought could help.
The first organisation to support the ColaLife Operational Trial in Zambia (COTZ) with funds, as well as training and advice, was The Johnson & Johnson Corporate Citizenship Trust, now the Johnson & Johnson Foundation, and Janssen EMEA. They put ColaLife through one of their management and innovation ‘boot camps’ and we won our first substantial donation from their ‘Dragon’s Den’.
Next to come on board was our majority funder for the COTZ trial in Zambia: the UK’s Department for International Development (DfID) (now FCDO). Other COTZ funders were COMESA/TMSA, Honda and Grand Challenges Canada. We continued to draw on huge support from packaging experts Amcor and PI Global, collaboration from UNICEF and other health agencies, far-sighted help from the Zambian Government Ministry of Health and department of Community Development – not forgetting thousands of individuals who offered everything from expertise, ideas and events, to regular donations. The encouragement and the kudos ColaLife obtained from association with funders was very valuable. Philanthropic funding, from the Ceniarth Foundation and then the Isenberg Family Charitable Foundation, was vital. In Zambia it supported us during projects and after they ended to establish an independent, self-sustaining commercial product and its value chain. Yet our vision was never funding-driven: we sought impact and routes to self-sustaining, locally owned, profitable products for manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers, in Zambia and potentially elsewhere: our IP was and remains free.
Funders went on to support market development to underpin the Kit Yamoyo scale-up plan. They included the SUN fund (Scaling Up Nutrition), DfID and ColaLife’s Innovation Award from GSK/Save the Children. By the end of 2018, the new Kit Yamoyo designs and the associated value chain were self-sustaining in Zambia, through local manufacture and independent distribution and sales through existing channels to market – including the Ministry of Health’s health facilities, where it can be obtained for free. All profits went, and still go to local actors, including LiveWell social enterprise and the micro-businesses that serve local communities in towns and villages. ColaLife was never directly involved in buying or selling any kits, and we did not take any fees or margins from sales.
ColaLife remained a tiny organisation – with no physical HQ, no employees, and few material assets. Historically, the funding we raised largely funded the work of Zambian partners as well as funding global advocacy work or dissemination under the ColaLife brand, with speaking engagements and publications.
We learnt a lot about supporting mothers and carers who cannot afford the sustainable market price of Kit Yamoyo with discount vouchers; people from across the world contributed to our voucher fund, and innovative start-ups like Everly supported a one-for-one donation scheme. Our international dissemination work was supported by GSK/Save the Children, the Ceniarth Foundation, and the Isenberg Family Charitable Foundation, amongst others.
Our aim for ColaLife’s success was always for it to ‘work itself out of a job’, to cease to exist, whilst leaving behind a legacy of locally owned, self-sustaining co-packaged ORS and Zinc products, in Zambia, to save children’s lives for the foreseeable future. With the handover of the trademark to our manufacturing partner Pharmanova, the continued buy-in from the Ministry of Health and key retailers, the adoption of co-packaging by WHO and others, we achieved that aim.
ColaLife closed in March 2024. Follow the story here…. and use free legacy resources here…
Key Milestones: 1985 to Dec-13
View on Slideshare
You can buy a Coca-Cola virtually anywhere in developing countries but in these same places, when we founded ColaLife, 1 in 9 children died before their 5th birthday from simple, preventable causes like dehydration from diarrhoea. Today, there have been huge improvements, but still around half a million children die every year.
ColaLife, an independent charity, worked to understand Coca-Cola’s distribution, user needs, Bottom-of-the Pyramid costing, pricing, design and packaging, the power of social media, open-sourcing, and evidence-based action.
We worked with Health Ministries, local and international organisations, and the private sector, to spread ‘disruptive’ ideas so ORS and Zinc reaches children who need it. We educated carers, communities and everyone involved in the market, to make that happen. Our innovative approaches have been analysed by top academics.
>> Read more about how we work here.
Some snippets from history
Our original award-winning concept can be seen below: a wedge-shaped ‘aidpod’ (as the BBC’s Eddie Mair called it), designed to fit in the unused space between the necks of the bottles in a Coca-Cola crate. The ‘Aidpod’ was briefly patented, but it wasn’t the key enabler. We moved on, from aidpod to flexi-pack, from asking for distribution help to a deeper understanding of how and why Coca-Cola and similar products reach as far as they do, in remote markets. For more, read about ColaLife and the historic summary at current status.
A video describing the features of the AidPod is below. See also: The low-down on AidPods.
Simon Berry on the BBC’s iPM Programme
On 25/4/08 Coca-Cola committed to ‘trial the ideas behind Colalife’ on the BBC’s iPM Programme. To hear the essential commitment made in the interview click on the play button below:
This is the full 25/4/09 interview:
Subsequent to this interview, Coca-Cola began work with the Government of Tanzania training those involved in the distribution of drugs and so it was suggested that we look elsewhere to undertake the ColaLife pilot. In the summer of 2010 we researched a range of countries for the pilot and chose Zambia. We went on to work with local partners, including the bottler of Coca-Cola in Zambia, SABMiller, on the first trial: COTZ.
The principle of local determination was always heart of ColaLife, and as our strategy evolved, that principle didn’t changed – in fact, it became ever more deeply embedded. We remained committed to empowering and strengthening the local public health and private sector infrastructure – and genuinely making ourselves redundant.
This is explained in more detail here. Our key principles are here. We have left a legacy of publications, a PlayBook, this website and numerous other information sources to enable others to adopt and adapt our designs and approaches. We hope that they will.
* Our original Facebook Group was deleted by Facebook when they introduced Facebook Pages. Our Facebook Page is here: facebook.com/colalife.
Last amended by: Jane Berry on 24-Mar-24
