Coca-Cola apologized to a customer for an offensive bottle cap message, saying "YOU RETARD," the customer found in a newly-purchased Vitaminwater, ABC News reported Friday.
Coca-Cola's French mistake has led to a public apology to a family after a member found an offensive message printed in the bottle cap of a newly-purchased Vitaminwater.
The customer, Blake Loates of Edmonton in Alberta said she was shocked when she opened the beverage and found the words "YOU RETARD" inside the cap, which she found very painful to read, knowing that one of her younger sisters, 11-year-old Fiona, has cerebral palsy and autism.
According to ABC News, Loates' father, Doug Loates, who lives in Tacoma, Washington, was compelled to write a lengthy letter of complaint to Vitaminwater's parent company, Coca-Cola.
"What would you do if you opened up your bottle of Vitamin Water and on the bottom of the lid it read, "YOU RETARD"?" Blake's father wrote in his letter. "Think about it. I bet you'd be pissed off if you had a Fiona in your life... Can you imagine if SHE had opened this bottle?"
Meanwhile, Coca-Cola representatives responded to the issue saying that the words inside the cap of the product was part of a competition pairing of one random English word with a second random French word.
A spokesman clarified that in French, "retard" means "late" or "delayed," adding that the English connotation was missed during the review process.
"We have spoken to the family to offer our sincerest apologies and to explain the production process to them," Director of Brand Communications for Coca-Cola Refreshment Canada Shannon Denny told ABC News. "This is certainly not an excuse in any way for what has occurred. We wanted them to know that this was in no way intentional and was a mistake on our part during the review process. We also wanted to share that the promotion has since been cancelled and we are no longer producing bottles with those caps."
Denny added that the company would also post their apology on the Facebook page of Vitaminwater Canada and share the same message through Twitter on both @vitaminwater_ca and @cocacolaco_ca.
"It was never our intention to offend anyone with this promotion," said Denny. "This was a mistake during the review process and we are taking steps to investigate and rectify the situation. We hope that our consumers can accept our profound apologies."
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