Chiapas Coca-Cola Bottling Plant

Author: Nora Lewis

Suggested Citation:

Lewis, N. (2026). Chiapas Coca-Cola bottling plant. Technology Assessment Project Case Study Library, University of Michigan. https://stpp.fordschool.umich.edu/tap-case-study-library/chiapas-coca-cola-bottling-plant

Chiapas Coca-Cola Bottling Plant

Key Takeaways:

Governments often prioritize corporate interests over the public good, using tools such as subsidies, permitting, and deregulation to benefit corporate partners.
Corporations will use the promise of jobs and "greenwashing" environmental initiatives to avoid responsibility for destructive resource extraction and industry.
Low-income and Indigenous communities bear the effects of inequitable resource distribution and globalization most, such as negative economic, public health, and quality of life impacts.
Governments must be receptive to public calls for equitable resource allocation, or they may face violent rebellions and political and social upheavals.

A large, red Coca-Cola delivery truck with a weathered trailer drives down a coastal city street lined with palm trees and traffic under an overcast sky.

A (Preventable) Water and Public Health Crisis Fueled by Coca-Cola

In the southeastern Mexican state of Chiapas, a water crisis has been brewing for years. Though Chiapas is one of Mexico's rainiest regions, climate change has diminished rainfall and poor water management facilities have made reliable water access difficult for many residents. The state is also home to one of Mexico's largest Indigenous populations, who have suffered the effects of limited water access in major ways (Balhi, 2025; Schmal, n.d.). This seemingly paradoxical situation, of little clean water in a water-heavy region, becomes clearer when zeroing in on the city of San Cristóbal de Las Casas. In San Cristóbal, a Coca-Cola bottling plant run by Femsa, the food and beverage giant that controls Coca-Cola bottling in Mexico and much of Latin America, is licensed to extract 300,000 gallons (or about 1.14 million litres) of water each day from a nearby volcanic basin (Yeung, 2025). The plant has been in operation since 1994, and receives generous water subsidies from the Mexican government despite the state's ongoing water crisis (Lewek, 2024; Lopez & Jacobs, 2018). It represents both a siege on already dwindling water resources and a source of economic support for many in the community. The plant employs 400 people and contributes around $200 million USD to the state's economy, meaning that many are dependent on this water-intensive industry to survive (Blum, 2018).

Still, survival remains difficult, particularly for low-income residents. Taps often run dry for weeks and require residents to travel over 30 minutes by bus to access water trucks and stores with clean bottles (Yeung, 2025). For some, clean water is a two hour walk (Pskowski, 2017). This uncertainty disrupts the lives of San Cristóbal residents, who can't drink, bathe, or carry on household tasks without this crucial water access. It also disrupts the lives of farmers in the region, who have struggled to adapt to droughts and face limited crops, profits, and food availability as a result (Leroy et al., 2023).

Not only is the Femsa plant a burden on local water access, but it has also proven a scourge on public health. Soft drinks are often more accessible than clean bottled water, and as a result, Chiapas has seen the highest annual increase in its diabetes mortality rate of any Mexican state since 1990, increasing 30 percent between 2013 and 2016 alone (Gutiérrez-León et al., 2022; Lopez & Jacobs, 2018). Local residents consume over two liters, or over half a gallon, of soda per day, which beyond diabetes, comes with an array of other negative health outcomes due to caffeine, sugar, and carcinogenic ingredients found in sodas like Coca Cola (Lopez & Jacobs, 2018).

Yet for most, the alternative is drinking tap water riddled with pathogens like E. coli and salmonella. A mere seven percent of Chiapas households feel their water is safe to drink, according to a national survey conducted in 2023 (Yeung, 2025). San Cristóbal lacks a wastewater treatment plant, and water for residents is sourced from shallow wells, roughly 25 meters at their deepest, that are prone to contamination. Comparatively, the Femsa bottling plant receives special permits from the Mexican government to drill and extract water from wells averaging 130 meters deep in the Huitepec mountains of San Cristóbal, water which is better protected from groundwater pollution (Lopez & Jacobs, 2018). Citizens have challenged the government to permit deeper wells for local potable drinking through complaints, signed petitions, and organized protests, to no avail (EJ Atlas, 2022). Instead, Femsa's priority access to the highest-quality water in the region accelerates the water shortages for the community and limits their access to healthier beverages (Pskowski, 2017; Yeung, 2025).

In 2017, a UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Right to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation appealed to the Mexican government to act urgently on its constitutional commitment to provide all of its citizens access to water and sanitation, but few strides have been made since (UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, 2017). Femsa has funded some reforestation and rain water catchment projects in response to public pressures, seeking to "replenish" the water used at bottling plants in full (Pskowski, 2017). But these efforts have not made marked change in water supplies, and Femsa continues to collect plentiful and high-quality water from its deep wells. In the meantime, reliable clean water remains out of reach for most, particularly Chiapas' poorest, and Coca-Cola remains a mainstay in local diets.

The soft drink is even ingrained in religious rituals of San Cristóbal's Indigenous Tzotzil population, with some believing the drink has healing properties (Lopez & Jacobs, 2018; Papadovassilakis, 2018). This cultural elevation of Coca-Cola is arguably a result of relentless marketing efforts from the company over the decades. Advertising campaigns from Coca-Cola and Pepsi as early as the 1960s used models in traditional Tzotzil clothing to market their beverages to local Indigenous populations, and today, Femsa owns over 20,000 convenience stores across Mexico where they personally stock fridges for Coca-Cola (Lopez & Jacobs, 2018; Yeung, 2025). Medical research shows that Indigenous Mexicans are more likely to be diabetic than their non-Indigenous counterparts, making these marketing techniques all the more harmful for Tzotzil populations (Castro-Porras et al., 2023; Lopez & Jacobs, 2018; Rodríguez Mega, 2015).

The Politics of Corporate Resource Access

Femsa is one of Mexico's most economically and politically powerful corporations, and has maintained friendly relations with government officials and political institutions for decades (Gómez, 2019). When the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was signed in 1994, an influx of foreign investment in Femsa further solidified their place as an influential political actor (Gómez, 2019). It's no surprise that San Cristóbal's Femsa plant was opened that same year. Other major political shifts were brewing in Chiapas at this time, particularly the Zapatista Uprising. Led by the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, a far-left political and militant group, the uprising was formed in response to NAFTA and neoliberalism, environmental degradation in Chiapas, and a history of suppression from the Mexican government toward Indigenous peoples (Hamilton, n.d.). Zapatistas raided cities across Chiapas, releasing Indigenous prisoners and destroying land records to challenge the legitimacy of Mexican land use policies (Hamilton, n.d.; Siefer, 2024). This rebellion was centered in San Cristóbal, which remains one of the most popular tourist destinations in the state. The uprising was met with violent suppression from the Mexican government, but is credited with invigorating civic engagement and democratic reforms across Mexico (Gilbreth & Otero, 2001). The Zapatistas' violent approach during the uprising is a testament to past apathy from the Mexican government in response to peaceful forms of protest, particularly from Indigenous populations who marched and organized to assert their rights for decades prior. It also highlights the ongoing impacts of globalization on communities like Chiapas, who today face water shortages and health crises due to the same government prioritization of corporate interests seen in 1994.

Corporate interests and politics are particularly intertwined in Mexico's bustling soft drink economy. Former Femsa CEO, Vicente Fox, was Mexico's president from 2000 to 2006, and many argue that his administration's hands-off regulation of the soft drink industry was an extension of this corporate past (Gómez, 2019; Lopez & Jacobs, 2018). These cozy relations are obvious in the highly discounted rates that Femsa pays for water at its bottling plants, about 2,600 pesos or $155 for each water permit (Yeung, 2025). The discounted rates that Femsa pays for already dwindling water supplies reveal a prioritization of corporate interests, and the harmful public health crises and resource strains felt by communities as a result.

The Uncertain Future of Water Access in Chiapas

It's unlikely that the almost mythic popularity and convenience of Coca-Cola in Chiapas will change anytime soon. Corporate-friendly water policies and resource extraction, marketing, and Indigenous suppression maintain this inequitable distribution of clean water. Though droughts will only grow more intense as climate change progresses, the case reveals that the people of Chiapas, and even international organizations, are actively challenging the Mexican government to preserve their right to water.

Relevance to Advanced Nuclear Energy

The Chiapas Coca-Cola plant speaks to the resource use and extraction questions relevant to uranium mining, a process that has historically contaminated communities in the name of nuclear energy production. The Coca-Cola plant was prioritized over communities through government subsidies and favorable land and resource privileges, resulting in widespread drought and exposure to contaminated water, destabilizing everyday life. The case shows how low-income and Indigenous communities often shoulder these sorts of environmental harms in the name of national economic benefits. It also shows that governments must prioritize public over corporate benefits when allocating resources, or else risk social and political upheaval and even violence. These conditions are relevant in the case of advanced nuclear energy, where production will rely on similar extraction and is likely to disrupt and harm these communities without considerable protections and engagement.

Key Sources:

EJ Atlas. (2022, September 29). Acaparamiento de agua por parte de FEMSA Coca Cola en San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico [Water grabbing by FEMSA Coca Cola in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico]. https://ejatlas.org/print/extractivismo-de-agua-femsa-coca-cola-chiapas-mexico

Lopez, O., & Jacobs, A. (2018, July 14). In town with little water, Coca-Cola is everywhere. So is diabetes. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/14/world/americas/mexico-coca-cola-diabetes.html

Pskowski, M. (2017, September 13). Coca-Cola sucks wells dry in Chiapas, forcing residents to buy water. Truthout. https://truthout.org/articles/coca-cola-sucks-wells-dry-in-chiapas-forcing-residents-to-buy-water/

Yeung, P. (2025, January 8). ‘Forgotten': How one Mexican city struggles against big industry for water. Al Jazeera. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2025/1/8/forgotten-how-one-mexican-city-struggles-against-big-industry-for-water

References:

Balhi, C. (2025, February 26). Low access to drinkable water for indigenous people in Mexico's wettest region. https://upstreamjournal.org/chiapas-water-crisis/

Blum, L. (2018, August 14). Coca-Cola's corporate greed is leaving Mexicans thirsty. Council on Hemispheric Affairs. https://coha.org/coca-colas-corporate-greed-is-leaving-mexicans-thirsty/

Castro-Porras, L. V., Rojas-Martínez, R., Romero-Martínez, M., Aguilar-Salinas, C. A., & Escamilla-Nuñez, C. (2023). The trend in the prevalence of diabetes mellitus in the Mexican Indigenous population from 2000 to 2018. AJPM Focus, 2(2). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.focus.2023.100087

Gilbreth, C., & Otero, G. (2001). Democratization in Mexico: The Zapatista Uprising and civil society. Latin American Perspectives, 28(4), 7–29. https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X0102800402

Gómez, E. J. (2019). Coca-Cola's political and policy influence in Mexico: Understanding the role of institutions, interests and divided society. Health Policy and Planning, 34(7), 520–528. https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czz063

Gutiérrez-León, E., Escamilla-Santiago, R. A., Martínez-Amezcua, P., Bilal, U., Lazo, M., Ogaz-González, R., & López-Cervantes, M. (2022). Trends and effect of marginalization on diabetes mellitus-related mortality in Mexico from 1990 to 2019. Scientific Reports, 12(9190). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-12831-z

Hamilton, C. (n.d.). Brief historical background to the Zapatista movement. Hemispheric Institute. Retrieved May 12, 2025, from https://hemisphericinstitute.org/en/su10-tourism/item/879-su10-brief-historical-background-zapatista-movement.html

Leroy, D., Bocco, G., & Barrasa García, S. (2023). Smallholder farmers' perceptions of and adaptations to water scarcity in an irrigated system in Chiapas, Mexico. International Journal of Water Resources Development, 39(5), 773–795. https://doi.org/10.1080/07900627.2022.2142203

Lewek, J. (2024, September 9). CADENA's disaster relief, resilience-building, and preparedness in Chiapas and beyond. CAF America. https://cafamerica.org/blog/cadenas-disaster-relief-resilience-building-and-preparedness-in-chiapas-and-beyond/

Papadovassilakis, A. (2018, August 27). Churchgoers in Chiapas use Coca-Cola to cleanse evil spirits—Aztec Reports. Aztec Reports. https://aztecreports.com/churchgoers-in-chiapas-use-coca-cola-to-cleanse-evil-spirits/1319/

Rodríguez Mega, E. (2015, June 5). Maya ancestry may help explain the high risk of diabetes in Mexico | Science | AAAS. Science. https://www.science.org/content/article/maya-ancestry-may-help-explain-high-risk-diabetes-mexico

Schmal, J. (n.d.). Chiapas: Forever Indigenous. Indigenous Mexico. Retrieved May 12, 2025, from https://www.indigenousmexico.org/articles/chiapas-forever-indigenous

Siefer, T. (2024, November 26). Zapatismo at 30: An Indigenous rights movement faces perilous times. Nonprofit Quarterly. https://nonprofitquarterly.org/zapatismo-at-30-an-indigenous-rights-movement-faces-perilous-times/

Photo: A Coca-Cola truck, Mexico. (Josh Withers / Pexels)