Burger Bros E2 ditches Coca-Cola, Fanta and Sprite in boycott of brands linked to Israel
Burger Bros E2 on the Roman Road has stopped selling Coca-Cola, Fanta and Sprite in a boycott of ‘any item that funds Israel’.
Customers of Burger Bros E2 will no longer be able to purchase Coca-Cola, Sprite and Fanta from the restaurant following its boycott of products it says are linked to Israel.
Restaurant owners Zakwan Ahmed, Habbib Chowdhury and Shah Fakhrul have also stopped stocking Oreo products and soft drink brands owned by Pepsico. Instead, the burger restaurant is selling the beverages of 411 Drinks International.
On a post published on Instagram, the company said: ‘In support of all of our brothers and sisters who are suffering in Palestine by the hands of the oppressors, we will be boycotting any item which funds Israel.’
The eatery, which is also home to the desert shop Bake Bros, opened at 123 Roman Road on Friday 20 October 2023. As part of its launch, the restaurant donated all the profits made on opening day to Palestine.
‘I used to drink Coke on a daily basis, it was like a standard tradition. I’d go to my sister’s house and I’d take a case of Coke with me. It was quite difficult, but it was a must for us’, Ahmed said.
‘With everything that’s going on, we can’t physically stop anything, but we can help. That was one of the main reasons we decided to do the boycott.’
After initially feeling worried about hanging a flag outside the restaurant, the owners have received ‘a very positive reaction’ from the public. Ahmed said:
‘We’ve got customers that wouldn’t normally come in coming in just because we’ve got the flag out there. We’re a new shop, so not a lot of people know we exist and people are a bit wary of trying new food. We have our normal customers, but a lot of new customers come in purely because of the flag.’
The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement is a two-decade-old campaign that targets companies they say are complicit in Israel’s violation of Palestinian rights. As Israel continues its offensive on Gaza, the BDS movement has intensified and gained millions of views on social media.
Coca-Cola, Starbucks and McDonald’s are just some of the multinational corporations that have been identified by the Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) and the Inminds Human Rights Group as allegedly supporting Israel in its military campaign in Gaza.
On the Coca-Cola website, the company denied the accusation that its profits were sent to the Israeli Army. ‘Coca‑Cola does not fund military operations in any country’, the company said.
Coca-Cola operates a regional distribution centre in the Atarot Industrial Park, north of Jerusalem. The area was annexed by Israel following the 1967 Six-Day War, alongside the rest of the West Bank where Palestinians live under Israeli occupation.
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This would not make me choose to go to this restaurant or not. Good for them but if you have a small restaurant business, the food is what will keep people coming back
Consumers make ethical and morally guided decisions to shop somewhere or buy a product.
Just as you would choose Fair Trade coffee or chocolate, or animal cruelty free makeup or clothes not made in sweatshops or through slavery, it simply makes moral and ethical sense to support local businesses such as this shop who actively support peace and justice and don’t put profit in front of lives.
I will recommend my friends and family to visit this shop for their choices.