South Africa’s “Mr Coca - Cola” still smiles at 100 JANUARY 2007


 

The hey-day of South Africa’s Jewish country communities is long past, but to this day one still finds individual Jews living in far-flung rural hamlets all over the country.

All have interesting life stories to tell, and that is certainly true of Worcester’s  “Mr Coca Cola” Louis Lange, who last December celebrated his 100^th birthday in the company of his wife Joyce, daughters Marion, Daphne and Renaye, family members, friends and colleagues.

Rabbi Moshe Silberhaft, Spiritual Leader to the Country Communities, recently met with Louis and Joyce Lange, who shared their memories of their life together and of Worcester’s Jewish community.

Lange’s parents Meyer and Rebecca (nee Mangelsdorf) arrived in Cape Town from Kurland, Latvia, in 1899. They settled in Worcester where Louis Isaac, their fifth child, was born in 1906. In the same year of Louis’ birth, Meyer and his brother-in-law Joseph Glasser founded the company Lange & Glasser – General Dealers, Butchers & Aerated Water Manufacturers. This would in due course grow into one of the largest Coca-Cola franchises in South Africa and today, now called Worcester Minerals, it can claim to be one of the oldest bottling companies in the country.

Louis, who even now remains a director of the company, took over the family business on his father’s death in 1925. In 1940, the same year as his marriage to Joyce (nee Sacks), he was offered and accepted the Coca-Cola franchise, becoming the second bottler in the country to receive it (the first was in Witbank). It was a difficult time for soft drink manufacturers as there was a wartime shortage of sugar and syrup had to be sent from Cape Town in stainless steel drums. Bottles were filled by hand until 1947, when a bottle filler was installed.

He managed to become both highly respected and popular, noted for his keen sense of humour. In a special DVD made for his hundredth birthday, he was referred to by Neville Isdell, CEO of the Coca-Cola Company from Atlanta, Georgia, as “a living Coca-Cola legend, a man who managed to pack three or four centuries into one”.  

Louis and Joyce have five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. Their daughter Renaye, herself a leading theatrical producer, is married to the well-known entertainer David Kramer.

On leaving the Langes, Rabbi Silberhaft said to Louis that he would, please G-d, see him again on his next visit.