Coca-Cola Apologizes For Offensive Bottle Cap
Blake Loates wasn’t at all pleased by the offensive bottle cap message she received when she opened up her bottle of Vitamin Water.
While sitting at her dinner table with her family, Blake opened her bottle and was rather shocked to read the message, “You Retard,” written on the inside of the cap.
“We immediately thought ‘You have got to be kidding me,'” she told the Huffington Post.
The Inquisitr reported earlier that, after Blake’s father, Doug, found out, he wrote a very angry letter to Coca-Cola.
The company couldn’t just ignore the situation, and has issued an apology to the family for the unacceptable message.
According to Metro News, director of brand communications for Coca-Cola Refreshment Canada stated the following:
“We did not mean to offend at all. We are certainly very apologetic for this oversight.”
According to the Huffington Post, Coca-Cola explained that the bottle cap is part of a contest being held by Vitamin Water where they randomly print one English word and one French word on their caps.
“Coke told us they reviewed the words before the contest, so we’re still a bit confused about why, after sitting down and looking at the word list, they would decide to keep it. It’s English meaning is offensive and they should have realized that,” said Blake.
In French, the word “retard” translates to “late” or “delayed” while the connotation of the word in English is offensive according to the Huffington Post.
While many comments on the viral story have ranged from anger to those who believe it’s really no big deal, the Loates family finds it extremely offensive considering one of the younger children in the family has cerebral palsy and autism.
According to the Huffington Post, Doug stated:
“You see,the “R” word is considered a swear word in our family. We don’t use it. We don’t tolerate others using it around us. We ARE over-sensitive but you would be too if you had Fiona for a daughter!”
The report continues to say that Coke plans to suspend the promotion and that all the remaining bottle caps have been destroyed.
Coca-Cola will also be recalling any remaining related products to make sure that no more offensive bottle caps offend anyone else.
