06-main-dossier.md

BDS-1000 Dossier: Costa Coffee

BRS Score: 649 - Tier B (Severe) Audit basis: Military, Digital, Economic, Political domain audits (June–July 2026)

Key Findings

• Economic: Coca-Cola’s exclusive Israeli licensee, the Central Bottling Company (CBC), operates a regional distribution centre in the Atarot Industrial Zone, occupied East Jerusalem, and its subsidiaries Tabor Winery and Tara Dairy source from, or operate on, West Bank, Golan Heights and Jordan Valley settlement land - attributed to Coca-Cola’s franchise system, not to Costa Coffee directly, which has no equity stake in CBC.¹²
• Political: The BDS National Committee added Coca-Cola to its priority boycott list in December 2024, and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign named Costa Coffee alongside other Coca-Cola brands in its April 2025 “Don’t Buy Apartheid” campaign; Coca-Cola has issued no statement on the Israel-Hamas war and Costa Coffee has issued no statement at all.³⁴⁵
• Settlements/Historical: In 2015, while still owned by Whitbread (pre-dating the 2019 Coca-Cola acquisition), CBC donated ₪50,000 (~$13,850) to Im Tirtzu, a right-wing Israeli advocacy group described in Israeli court proceedings as exhibiting characteristics of fascism.⁶
• Not found: No public evidence of any Costa Coffee-branded store, franchise, defence contract, dual-use product, or Israeli-origin surveillance/biometric technology currently in use by Costa Coffee; Costa Coffee has zero direct operational presence in Israel or the occupied territories.

Target Profile

Key Facts:

• Founded in London in 1971 by Sergio Costa and Bradford Paschal; owned by Whitbread PLC 1995–2019; acquired by The Coca-Cola Company on 3 January 2019.⁷⁸
• No Costa Coffee-branded stores, franchises, or licensed outlets exist in Israel, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, or Gaza.⁸¹
• Coca-Cola explored a sale of Costa Coffee from August 2025 via Lazard, with TDR Capital and Bain Capital Special Situations as final-round bidders; talks ended in December 2025/January 2026 as bids fell below Coca-Cola’s ~£2 billion valuation threshold.⁹¹⁰
• Costa Coffee posted an operating loss of ~£13.5 million on revenue of ~£1.2 billion in 2024; Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey publicly described the acquisition as “not quite delivered.”¹⁰

Executive Summary

Costa Coffee is a UK-founded coffee retail chain that has been a wholly owned subsidiary of The Coca-Cola Company since January 2019. Across all four domain audits, the central and consistent finding is that Costa Coffee itself has no direct operational presence in Israel or the occupied Palestinian territories - no stores, no franchise agreements, no contracts, and no confirmed technology or supply relationships with Israeli state, security, or settlement entities.⁸¹ Costa Coffee’s documented Israel/Palestine nexus is therefore almost entirely a function of group attribution: it is owned by The Coca-Cola Company, whose exclusive Israeli beverage licensee, the privately held Central Bottling Company (CBC), operates settlement-linked infrastructure that boycott campaigns and human-rights researchers attribute to the wider “Coca-Cola” brand, of which Costa is one component.¹²

The strongest documented vectors sit in the economic and political domains. CBC’s wholly owned subsidiary, the Central Beverage Distribution Company, operates a regional distribution centre and cooling facilities in the Atarot Industrial Zone in occupied East Jerusalem - land appropriated from Palestinian villages and classified as a settlement - a facility that Who Profits Research Center categorises as “Settlement Enterprise” and “Settlement Production.”¹ CBC’s subsidiary Tabor Winery sources grapes from vineyards in West Bank settlements (Gush Etzion, Alon Shvut, near Har Bracha) and the occupied Syrian Golan Heights (Ortal, Keshet, near Mount Shifon), and its subsidiary Tara Dairy (Milco Industries), acquired for $39 million in 2004, operates a dairy farm at Shadmot Mehola, a settlement in the occupied Jordan Valley.¹¹² These facts anchor Coca-Cola’s designation by the BDS National Committee as a priority boycott target from December 2024, and Costa Coffee’s explicit inclusion - as a Coca-Cola-owned brand, not as a standalone Israeli operator - in the Palestine Solidarity Campaign’s “Don’t Buy Apartheid” campaign launched in March–April 2025.³⁴⁵

What is not supported by the evidence is comparably significant. No audit identified any defence contract, arms-related supply relationship, dual-use product line, or munitions connection between Costa Coffee (or CBC) and any Israeli military or security body; Costa Coffee and Coca-Cola do not appear in UK arms export licence data for Israel, in the PAX for Peace 2024 report on arms-industry financiers, or in the military-sector paragraphs of the UN Special Rapporteur’s July 2025 “economy of genocide” report. A recurring secondary-source claim that Tara Dairy supplies the IDF’s Shekem canteen system could not be verified against any primary source and is carried in this dossier as unverified, not established.¹² Similarly, no Israeli-origin surveillance, biometric, or defence-technology vendor relationship currently exists for Costa Coffee; the only documented Israeli-technology touchpoint anywhere in the corporate family is a 2011 marketing use of Face.com facial-recognition kiosks by Coca-Cola Israel, discontinued well over a decade ago.¹³ Costa Coffee is also not confirmed as a listed entity in the UN OHCHR settlement business database in the primary-document text reviewed, though CBC’s inclusion is asserted by secondary aggregator datasets - an evidence gap the audits flag rather than resolve.¹⁴¹⁵

The resulting composite reflects this pattern precisely: near-floor scores in the military (V=1.68) and digital (V=0.21) domains, against substantial, well-documented scores in the economic (V=7.00) and - driving the overall tier - political (V=8.60) domains, where formal BDS/PSC targeting, a zero rating from Ethical Consumer, and Coca-Cola’s documented silence on the conflict combine with the historically real settlement-linked activity of its Israeli licensee. The Bottom-Line Response Score of 649 places Costa Coffee in Tier B (Severe) - a rating driven overwhelmingly by group/brand-level political and economic exposure through the Coca-Cola system rather than by any direct, Costa-specific military or technological nexus.

Timeline of Relevant Events

Corporate Overview

Costa Coffee operates as a wholly owned operating subsidiary of The Coca-Cola Company, with no independent Israeli operations of any kind.⁷⁸ The relevant corporate chain bifurcates immediately below the parent: (1) The Coca-Cola Company → Costa Coffee, a retail coffee chain with stores across the UK, Europe, Asia, and other markets, and zero presence in Israel or the occupied territories; and (2) The Coca-Cola Company → CBC (Central Bottling Company), a privately held, independently owned Israeli licensee - majority-owned by the Wertheim family (David Wertheim, 62.99%, alongside Reuven Becher, Gil Orion, and Chen Amir, each 12.33%) - that holds the exclusive franchise to bottle and distribute Coca-Cola products in Israel and, per a 2024 Israeli District Court ruling (AM 16567), to franchisees such as McDonald’s and Burger King operating in occupied Palestinian territory.¹²¹³

CBC’s own subsidiary structure carries the settlement-linked activity documented across the audits: the Central Beverage Distribution Company Ltd. (Atarot Industrial Zone distribution and cooling facility, occupied East Jerusalem); Tabor Winery (2005) Ltd., 92.5%-owned, sourcing from West Bank and Golan Heights settlement vineyards; and Tara Dairy/Milco Industries, whose 81%-owned subsidiary Meshek Zuriel Dairy operates a farm in the Shadmot Mehola settlement.¹¹¹² Coca-Cola holds no equity stake in CBC; the relationship is a franchise/licensing arrangement, and Coca-Cola’s own communications state it “acknowledges its global franchise model and has no direct ownership of Coca-Cola Israel.”¹ Separately, Coca-Cola’s Palestinian franchisee, National Beverage Company (NBC), founded by Zahi Khouri in 1995, is also wholly independent of Coca-Cola equity.¹⁷¹⁸

Costa Coffee’s own technology and operations footprint - loyalty platform, contact-centre systems, café equipment, procurement partners - is concentrated in the UK, EU, Serbia, Poland, Bulgaria, and the US, with no confirmed Israeli-origin vendor relationship identified in this research.¹³

Domain Summaries

Military: Military

Mechanism of Involvement

No direct contracting, procurement, or supply relationship exists between Costa Coffee and any Israeli defence, security, or military body. The domain’s evidentiary weight rests entirely on group attribution through CBC’s settlement-zone commercial infrastructure: the Atarot Industrial Zone distribution centre (occupied East Jerusalem, established 1970 on appropriated Palestinian village land), Tabor Winery’s settlement-vineyard sourcing, and Tara Dairy’s farm at Shadmot Mehola.¹¹¹ A recurring secondary-source claim that Tara Dairy supplies the IDF’s Shekem military canteen system appears in multiple advocacy sources but could not be verified against any primary source or Who Profits documentation and is treated in this dossier strictly as unverified.¹² The former Atarot Airport adjacent to the industrial zone was reportedly used as an IDF forward post during the Second Intifada, but no evidence connects this specifically to CBC’s distribution facility.¹²

Counter-Arguments and Evidence Limits

No public evidence identified of any contract, tender, or memorandum between Costa Coffee (or Coca-Cola) and the Israeli MoD, IDF, Israel Prison Service, or Border Police. Costa Coffee and CBC do not appear in SIBAT defence catalogues, Israeli procurement registries, or the PAX for Peace June 2024 report on arms producers and their financiers.¹² Costa Coffee and Coca-Cola do not appear in UK export-licence data covering the ~30 licences suspended in September 2024, nor in the military-sector paragraphs (28–47) of UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese’s July 2025 report.¹² CBC is structurally an independent franchisee, not a Costa Coffee entity.¹

Named Entities and Evidence Map

CBC; Central Beverage Distribution Company Ltd.; Tabor Winery; Tara Dairy/Meshek Zuriel Dairy; Atarot Industrial Zone; Shadmot Mehola settlement; Im Tirtzu (2015 CBC donation, pre-dating Coca-Cola’s 2019 Costa acquisition and unconnected to any defence entity).¹¹¹⁶

Digital: Digital

Mechanism of Involvement

The digital domain returns almost uniformly negative findings. Costa Coffee’s confirmed technology vendors (loyalty, CRM, app development, testing, IoT connectivity) are UK-, EU-, US-, and Serbia-based with no Israeli-origin component identified.¹³ The only documented Israeli-technology touchpoint anywhere in the Coca-Cola/Costa corporate family is historical: a 2011 “Summer Love” marketing event by Coca-Cola Israel used FaceLook kiosks built on Face.com facial-recognition technology (an Israeli company later acquired by Facebook in 2012); no evidence of continued use post-2012 exists.¹³ CBC separately runs conventional enterprise IT (SAP, NetApp, Citrix) for its own commercial operations, unconnected to Costa Coffee.¹³

Counter-Arguments and Evidence Limits

Costa Coffee and Coca-Cola are not named parties to Project Nimbus, the $1.2bn Google/AWS cloud contract with the Israeli government and military.¹³ No evidence identified of Costa Coffee or Coca-Cola holding licensing relationships with Check Point, NICE, Verint, CyberArk, or other Israeli security-technology vendors. No evidence identified of biometric, facial-recognition, or behavioural-surveillance technology currently deployed in any Costa Coffee store globally. Coca-Cola’s Israeli-startup engagement (the 2014 “Bridge” cohort) produced no confirmed ongoing commercial deployment.¹³

Named Entities and Evidence Map

Face.com/FaceLook (2011, historical, discontinued); CBC’s SAP/NetApp/Citrix infrastructure (CBC-internal, commercial use only); Coca-Cola’s 2014 Tel Aviv “Bridge” programme startups (Neura, WeissBeerger, Ubimo, Bringg, and others - no sustained deployment documented).¹³

Economic: Economic

Mechanism of Involvement

The economic nexus is the strongest and most concretely documented vector, running entirely through CBC. CBC’s Central Beverage Distribution Company operates the Atarot Industrial Zone regional distribution and cooling facility servicing occupied East Jerusalem - a market from which Coca-Cola’s Palestinian franchisee (National Beverage Company) is excluded.¹² Tabor Winery (92.5% CBC-owned) sources from West Bank and Golan Heights settlement vineyards; Tara Dairy, acquired for $39 million in 2004, operates via its subsidiary a farm in the Shadmot Mehola settlement.¹¹² CBC is a dominant Israeli market actor, controlling an estimated 67–90% of the Israeli soft-drink market, and is majority-owned by billionaire David Wertheim, who also controls Mizrahi Tefahot Bank and Keshet Media Group.² A 2017 Tel Aviv District Court ruling found CBC’s relationship with Coca-Cola sufficiently integrated (a “special relationship” akin to joint venture) to trigger additional Israeli royalties tax liability of ~$45 million.¹⁹ Coca-Cola is separately identified as the single company receiving the most European financial-institution financing for settlement-linked activity, per the 2024 Don’t Buy Into Occupation (DBIO) coalition report.¹⁴

Counter-Arguments and Evidence Limits

Costa Coffee has no stores, revenue, or physical footprint in Israel, and its 2019 acquisition by Coca-Cola transferred no Israeli assets, franchise, or real estate.⁸⁹ Coca-Cola holds no equity stake in CBC - the arrangement is franchise/licensing only, and CBC’s profits flow to its private Israeli shareholders, not to Coca-Cola or Costa.¹² Coca-Cola EuroPacific Partners (CCEP), the world’s largest independent Coca-Cola bottler, does not include Israel among its 31 markets.²³ Costa Coffee’s own 2024 financials show an operating loss of ~£13.5 million on ~£1.2 billion revenue, and Coca-Cola actively explored (though ultimately did not complete) a sale of Costa Coffee in 2025, which the audits note would, if consummated, further attenuate the ownership link underlying this domain’s score.⁹¹⁰ No evidence identified of Israeli agricultural sourcing (Mehadrin, Hadiklaim, Agrexco) in Costa Coffee’s own supply chain.¹⁴

Named Entities and Evidence Map

CBC; David Wertheim (majority owner); Central Beverage Distribution Company; Tabor Winery; Tara Dairy/Milco Industries/Meshek Zuriel Dairy; Nir Levinger (CBC CEO); Yoram Sagy (CBC President); Atarot Industrial Zone.¹¹¹²¹⁹

Political: Political

Mechanism of Involvement

Political exposure is driven by formal boycott-movement targeting, documented settlement operations, and corporate silence rather than affirmative political conduct. The BDS National Committee added Coca-Cola to its priority boycott list in November–December 2024, citing Atarot operations, Tabor Winery sourcing, and the July 2024 ICJ advisory opinion.³ The Palestine Solidarity Campaign’s “Don’t Buy Apartheid” campaign (March–April 2025) explicitly named Costa Coffee among targeted Coca-Cola brands, with a national UK day of action on 5 April 2025.⁵ Ethical Consumer’s Israel-Palestine dataset scored Coca-Cola 0 out of 100 - the only company rated zero in that dataset.¹⁵ Coca-Cola distributes Bamba snacks and Coca-Cola beverages to IDF soldiers via “Operation Juha” (documented instance: over 100,000 soldiers), with no Costa Coffee involvement, and its timing relative to the July 2024 ICJ opinion or November 2024 ICC arrest-warrant applications is not independently confirmed.²⁶ Separately, Coca-Cola inaugurated a bottling plant in Gaza under a humanitarian framing, run through its Foundation, National Beverage Company, and Mercy Corps.²⁷ The 2015 CBC donation to Im Tirtzu (₪50,000/~$13,850) is documented via Israel Corporations Authority filings and predates Coca-Cola’s ownership of Costa.⁶

Counter-Arguments and Evidence Limits

Costa Coffee itself has issued no public statement whatsoever on the Israel-Palestine conflict - a position of total silence, not partisanship.¹⁵ Coca-Cola has told the ADL in writing that it “does not support, endorse or sanction the BDS movement,” states in its FAQ that it “does not support any political or religious causes,” and separately states it does not fund military operations in any country.¹⁶²⁸ Al Jazeera documented Coca-Cola, alongside other majors, as notably “muted” on the Israel-Hamas war compared to its vocal stance on Russia-Ukraine - evidence of avoidance rather than alignment.⁴ Coca-Cola’s Q1 2024 Senate lobbying disclosure shows no Israel-specific or anti-boycott issue codes.²⁹ Notably, pressure on Coca-Cola in this domain has come from both directions: in June 2015, the pro-Israel group Shurat HaDin threatened to sue Coca-Cola to revoke the franchise of its Palestinian licensee over that licensee’s CEO’s personal BDS sympathies, and Coca-Cola disavowed those personal statements to the ADL.¹⁶¹⁷¹⁸ No executive donations to Israeli military-welfare or settlement organisations, no board memberships in pro-Israel advocacy platforms, and no brand-heritage militarism have been identified for Costa Coffee or Coca-Cola leadership.¹⁵ Costa Coffee’s and CBC’s inclusion in the primary text of the UN OHCHR settlement-business database (as opposed to secondary aggregator datasets) remains an unresolved evidence gap across the audits, not a confirmed finding.¹⁴¹⁵

Named Entities and Evidence Map

BDS National Committee; Palestine Solidarity Campaign; Friends of Al-Aqsa (#BoycottCocaCola, 20+ years); Ethical Consumer; Shurat HaDin (Israel Law Center); Zahi Khouri/National Beverage Company; Im Tirtzu; Nir Levinger (2023 anti-judicial-overhaul stance); Anti-Defamation League.^6163452617

BDS-1000 Score (V4)

• V_MAX: 8.60 Sum_OTHERS: 8.89
• BRS Score: 649 Tier: B (Severe)

The composite is driven principally by Political (V_MAX = 8.60), reflecting formal BDS/PSC boycott targeting, a zero Ethical Consumer rating, and documented settlement operations by the corporate group, combined with a substantial, well-evidenced Economic contribution (7.00) from CBC’s Atarot distribution centre, Tabor Winery, and Tara Dairy holdings. The near-floor Military (1.68) and Digital (0.21) scores reflect the near-total absence of direct military-contracting or Israeli-origin technology evidence for Costa Coffee specifically. Scoring follows the scale-free BDS-1000 method: Impact (I, activity type) × Magnitude (M, scale) × Proximity (P, directness) per domain, evidence-only and human-vetted against the four domain audits above.

Methodology Note

• Every claim in this dossier traces to the Military, Digital, Economic, and Political domain audits; where those audits found nothing, this dossier states “No public evidence identified” rather than inferring absence of wrongdoing or presence of it.
• Scoring is scale-free: Impact (I) reflects the type of activity documented (e.g., settlement infrastructure vs. routine commercial vendor relationship); Magnitude (M) reflects the scale of that activity; Proximity (P) reflects how directly the scored entity (Costa Coffee) is implicated versus attributed through corporate group structure.
• Temporal rule: activity that has been divested, discontinued, or superseded (e.g., the 2011 Face.com marketing use, discontinued for over a decade; the unconsummated 2025 Costa sale process) is treated as mitigating rather than current-state evidence.
• Entity attribution rule: no transitive guilt is applied. Costa Coffee is scored on what is documented about Costa Coffee and its direct parent relationship; CBC’s settlement activity is carried as group/brand-level attribution, explicitly flagged as such throughout, not conflated with direct Costa Coffee conduct.
• Settlement dual-count: CBC’s Atarot Industrial Zone, Tabor Winery, and Tara Dairy settlement operations are counted in both Economic (commercial/financial dimension) and Political (settlement-activity/political dimension), consistent with BDS-1000 methodology for settlement-linked operations.
• Unverified secondary-source claims (e.g., the alleged IDF Shekem dairy supply relationship) are carried with their audit-assigned “unverified” caveat and are not treated as established fact in scoring or narrative.

End Notes