Mexico is one of the top consumers of carbonated sugary drinks in the world. A survey by statista, a business data analytics company, measuring retailing data from supermarkets, convenience stores and e-commerce ranks Mexico as number fifth in the list.

Coca-Cola is by far the most consumed carbonated sugary drink in Mexico. No other population around the world drink as much Coca—as Mexicans call Coca-Cola—as people in Mexico. An example of this is given by the habitants of San Juan Chamula, a small indigenous town in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas. A medical anthropologist exploring diabetes, food patterns and rituals in this town showed that people in San Juan Chamula drink an average of 800 liters of refresco - mostly Coca - per year per person, which comes down to about 2.5 liters a day. This issue has attracted public attention, raising discussions on the harmful effect this consumption is having on people’s health and on the environment.

Mexicans love to drink carbonated sugary drinks—or refrescos. The consumption of these drinks started in the first-half of the twentieth century, and it was in the 1940s, when consumption became significant. In those years there were refresco bottlers in almost state in Mexico. They bottled both refrescos made by national companies, but also by larger international companies such as PepsiCo and Coca-Cola. Technological developments such as refrigeration and mechanical transportation became central to this expansion.

The growth of the bottling industry was importantly enabled by the state-led industrial policy, which sought to modernize Mexico through the creation of inter-related industries to supply products for the consumption of the emergent urban population. The refresco industry was dependent on, and supported, multiple national industries. Sugar production and commercialization was one of them.