BDS-1000 Dossier: Costa Coffee (Costa Limited)

Ownership note: Costa Coffee is a wholly-owned subsidiary of (acquired 2019) Coca-Cola (649/B). Its boycott tier is inherited from Coca-Cola - purchasing it funds the parent. This dossier records the brand’s own direct footprint (no direct Israeli operations of its own - an indirect brand presence via The Coca-Cola Company’s local system and franchise-level scrutiny); the headline tier reflects Coca-Cola’s complicity (The Coca-Cola Company’s Israeli bottling and operations (the Central Bottling Company, incl. the Atarot settlement plant)).

Key Findings

• Economic: Costa Coffee’s parent TCCC operates in Israel through CBC (Central Bottling Company), which holds a distribution facility in the Atarot Industrial Zone (occupied East Jerusalem) and a controlling stake in Tabor Winery (settlement-sourced grapes from the Golan Heights and West Bank); a 2024 Tel Aviv District Court transfer-pricing ruling formally recognised a “special relationship” between TCCC and CBC.¹²³
• Political: CBC donated NIS 50,000 to Im Tirtzu (2015); TCCC/Costa suspended operations in Russia in 2022 with explicit moral framing but issued no comparable statement on Gaza; Costa Coffee is absent from the UN OHCHR settlement business database, which covers CBC’s parent franchise operations.⁴⁵
• Not found: No defence contracts, dual-use products, Israeli-origin technology deployment, or direct settlement operations by Costa Coffee Ltd identified; Military and Digital both scored 0.00; Costa’s exposure runs through the TCCC/CBC franchise structure, not direct operations.

Target Profile

Key Facts:

• Franchise ecosystem: Israel operations conducted through Central Bottling Company Ltd. (CBC), majority-owned by the Wertheim family; CBC holds exclusive TCCC franchise in Israel

Executive Summary

Costa Coffee is a UK-headquartered coffee retail and vending company, wholly owned by The Coca-Cola Company (TCCC) since January 2019. It does not operate stores, offices, or direct commercial relationships in Israel or the occupied Palestinian territories, and no verified named contract - defence, technology, or supply - has been documented between Costa Coffee and any Israeli state entity, military body, or settlement operation.

The company’s Israel/Palestine nexus is primarily structural and franchisee-mediated. TCCC operates in Israel through the Central Bottling Company (CBC), a separate publicly listed entity controlled by the Wertheim family, which holds the exclusive Coca-Cola franchise and operates a distribution facility in the Atarot Industrial Zone - an industrial estate in occupied East Jerusalem. CBC subsidiaries include Tara Dairy (81% stake in Meshek Zuriel Dairy, operating in the Jordan Valley settlement of Shadmot Mehola) and a controlling stake in Tabor Winery, which sources from territories under dispute. A 2024 Tel Aviv District Court transfer-pricing ruling formally recognised an economic “special relationship” between TCCC and CBC. TCCC also operates “The Bridge,” a Tel Aviv-based accelerator for Israeli startups.

Costa Coffee’s own Military and Digital scores are zero. No defence contracts, dual-use products, Israeli-origin technology vendors, or military service relationships have been identified. The Economic score (0.36) reflects the documented franchisee infrastructure (CBC’s Atarot facility and settlement-adjacent subsidiaries), parent-level accelerator activity, and a CBC investment in Israeli food-tech startup Biomilk - an inferential rather than direct financial conduit. The Political score (0.20) reflects TCCC’s and CBC’s institutional entanglements, including the disputed Im Tirtzu donation and CBC’s market dominance in Israel’s institutional beverage sector, as a structural inference rather than named contract.

Several claims from prior research reports have been rejected in this audit cycle: CBC’s MoD supplier designation, IDF care-package coordination, named settlement contracts, and specific corporate sponsorships - none withstood verification. The franchise model creates distance between Costa Coffee Ltd and CBC’s occupied-territory operations, and no primary source confirms that Costa-branded products specifically transit the Atarot facility. The resulting BRS 25 places Costa Coffee in Tier E (Minimal), reflecting documented but indirect and franchisee-mediated economic and political proximity rather than direct corporate activity.

Timeline of Relevant Events

Corporate Overview

Ownership Structure

Costa Limited is a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Coca-Cola Company (TCCC), a publicly traded US corporation (NYSE: KO) with no state-ownership or government investment stakes. TCCC acquired Costa from Whitbread plc on 3 January 2019 for approximately $5.1 billion, making Costa part of TCCC’s global beverage portfolio alongside Coca-Cola, Fanta, Sprite, Schweppes, and Innocent.⁹¹⁸¹⁰

Israeli Franchise Arrangement

TCCC does not operate directly in Israel. The Israeli market is served through The Central Bottling Company Ltd. (CBC), a separate legal entity publicly listed on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, majority-owned (approximately 63%) by the Wertheim family. CBC holds the exclusive franchise and concentrate-supply agreement for Coca-Cola products in Israel, giving it effective control over all Coca-Cola branded sales in the country. TCCC’s relationship to CBC is structured as a long-term brand licensing and concentrate supply arrangement - not equity ownership - though the August 2024 Tel Aviv District Court transfer-pricing ruling recognised a “special relationship” for tax purposes.¹²⁶³⁵

CBC Subsidiaries and Named Entities

CBC operates through a portfolio of subsidiaries with direct Israeli market presence:

• Tara Dairy (Meshek Tara): CBC subsidiary with dominant share of Israel’s soft drink market (approximately two-thirds) and significant dairy operations. CBC holds approximately 81% of Meshek Zuriel Dairy, which operates in Shadmot Mehola, an Israeli settlement in the northern Jordan Valley (Area C, occupied West Bank).⁴¹
• Tabor Winery: CBC holds a controlling stake. Tabor’s disclosed vineyard locations include Mount Shifon in the Golan Heights (occupied Syrian territory, annexed by Israel in 1981 - annexation not internationally recognised) and Har Bracha in the West Bank. West Bank sourcing is reported in Israeli wine trade press but not independently confirmed in corporate filings.¹¹⁹²⁰
• Prigat Juice and Neviot Water: Distributed by CBC across Israel’s institutional sector, including the IDF Shekem canteen network - a market-structure inference, not a verified named contract.¹⁰
• CBC Distribution Facility (Atarot Industrial Zone): Who Profits Research Centre documents CBC operating a logistics and distribution facility in the Atarot Industrial Zone, Occupied East Jerusalem, on land expropriated from Beit Hanina and Qalandia communities. The facility is characterised as serving Jerusalem consumers and West Bank settlement distribution. Operational continuity post-October 2023 is unconfirmed.⁴¹¹⁵

Costa Coffee’s Position Within the Ecosystem

Costa Coffee Ltd does not hold any ownership, franchise, or operational interest in CBC. As a wholly-owned TCCC subsidiary, Costa’s brand IP and corporate governance sit within the same corporate family, but Costa’s products are not confirmed as specifically manufactured, distributed, or warehoused by CBC or through the Atarot facility. The inference that Costa-branded products may flow through CBC’s distribution network is structurally plausible given the franchise model but rests on inferential chain rather than documented supply agreement.^9181321

Parent-Level Israeli Activities (TCCC)

• “The Bridge by Coca-Cola”: A Tel Aviv-based commercialisation accelerator connecting Israeli startups to TCCC’s commercial network. A 2017 press release confirmed expansion with additional corporate partners (Mercedes-Benz, Turner/WarnerMedia). Whether the programme remains active in 2025–2026 is unconfirmed from post-2020 public sources.²²¹³
• Biomilk Investment: CBC (not TCCC directly) invested approximately $2 million in Biomilk, an Israeli food-tech startup, in July 2021. Current operating status and investment status unconfirmed post-2022.¹¹¹²

Domain Summaries

Military: Military

Mechanism of Involvement

No mechanism of direct military involvement has been documented for Costa Coffee. The Military audit examined five pathways - direct defence contracting, dual-use products, infrastructure and construction, supply chain integration with defence primes, and logistical sustainment - and found no verified links between Costa Coffee and Israeli or allied defence procurement, manufacture, or service.⁹¹⁸

The most significant infrastructure-adjacent finding concerns CBC: Tara Dairy’s 81% stake in Meshek Zuriel Dairy (operating in Shadmot Mehola settlement, Area C, Jordan Valley) and CBC’s distribution facility in the Atarot Industrial Zone (occupied East Jerusalem) are documented in NGO research at medium confidence, but no primary corporate filings confirm the equity stake or facility operational scope.⁴¹ These are franchisee-level facts carried with evidentiary caveats.

CBC beverages are structurally likely to be present in IDF institutional supply given its dominant market position (approximately two-thirds of Israeli carbonated soft drink market), but no framework agreement number, tender award, or IDF procurement record naming CBC as a contracted Shekem supplier has been identified. The “care package” claim attributed to CBC and Im Tirtzu is unsupported: the Im Tirtzu donation is verified, but Im Tirtzu is a political advocacy organisation, not a logistics operator, and no evidence of a military care-package coordination role has been found.¹⁰⁷¹

Counter-Arguments and Evidence Limits

The strongest counter-arguments against military-nexus claims are robust:

1. No defence sector overlap. Costa Coffee is a food and beverage retail company. Its product range - coffee, dairy ingredients, packaging, commercial vending equipment - does not intersect with any documented Israeli defence prime supply chain. Products do not fall within controlled goods categories under UK Export Control Order 2008, EU Dual-Use Regulation, or ECCN classification regimes.⁹¹⁸

2. Franchise separation. Costa Coffee Ltd holds no ownership, contractual, or operational interest in CBC. The corporate family relationship creates no direct legal liability chain for CBC’s activities under standard corporate law principles.

3. Structural inference is not evidence. Market dominance arguments - that CBC likely supplies IDF canteens because of its scale - are reasonable sector-level observations but do not establish named contracts. The prior report presented these as established facts; this audit documents them as structural inferences only.

4. Prior claims did not withstand verification. The Tara Dairy MoD supplier designation rested on a citation to a competitor company’s (Strauss Group) annual report. The Im Tirtzu “care package” claim conflated a political donation with logistics activity. Both have been excluded from verified findings.

5. No SIBAT listings, defence export directories, or exhibition catalogues name Costa Coffee, CBC, or any CBC subsidiary.⁹¹⁸

Named Entities and Evidence Map

Digital: Digital

Mechanism of Involvement

No mechanism of digital or technology involvement with Israeli defence, intelligence, or state surveillance has been documented for Costa Coffee. The Digital audit examined enterprise technology vendors, surveillance and retail technology, cloud infrastructure, and AI/autonomous systems - finding confirmed Israeli-origin technology deployments at Costa Coffee unsupported by primary source evidence.⁹

Costa’s documented enterprise technology stack comprises exclusively non-Israeli vendors: Vega IT (Serbian) for data architecture; Microsoft Azure (US) for cloud workloads; Google Maps Platform (US) for location services; GEP Software (US) for procurement automation; and HyperFinity (UK) for loyalty programme personalisation. No identified vendor has an Israeli origin or identified Israeli infrastructure routing for Costa’s data.^18104712

The audit tested and rejected multiple prior claims of Israeli technology deployments: Check Point (co-appearance at a security summit only), NICE and Verint (co-exhibition relationships not confirming deployment), SentinelOne (market report naming Costa, not confirming client relationship), and CyberArk (via managed services provider with no named Costa engagement).⁶ No confirmed Israeli-origin cybersecurity or analytics deployment at Costa Coffee has been identified.

Counter-Arguments and Evidence Limits

1. Documented stack is entirely non-Israeli. The confirmed vendor relationships - Vega IT, Microsoft, Google, GEP, HyperFinity - are all US or European origin. No Israeli entity is named in any confirmed, publicly announced Costa technology partnership.

2. Prior claims lacked contractual evidence. The tested claims (Check Point, NICE, SentinelOne, CyberArk, Verint) all rested on co-appearance, co-exhibition, or market-report mentions rather than confirmed deployment relationships. The evidentiary standard applied here requires named, publicly announced or documented contractual relationships.

3. No military or intelligence contracts. No contracts, partnerships, or service agreements between Costa Coffee and the Israeli Ministry of Defence, IDF, Shin Bet, Mossad, or any Israeli or international defence or intelligence agency have been documented.⁹

4. Project Nimbus is not a Costa relationship. Project Nimbus is a contract between the Israeli government and Google Cloud/AWS. Costa uses Google Maps Platform (a consumer API, not cloud infrastructure) and no evidence places Costa’s data in Israeli cloud infrastructure.⁴

5. Historic technology deployments are not current-state evidence. The 2013 Intel/Bsquare “Marlow” facial-detection vending machine and the 2020 Briggo/BaristaBot acquisition are historical facts. No post-2020 source confirms the demographic analytics capability remains active, and Briggo/BaristaBot has been reported as discontinued. Neither platform has Israeli origin.^5151112

Named Entities and Evidence Map

Economic: Economic

Mechanism of Involvement

The economic nexus for Costa Coffee operates at three remove: (1) franchisee-level operations through CBC, (2) parent-level brand licensing and concentrate flows, and (3) parent-level accelerator investment.

Franchisee-Level (CBC): CBC’s Atarot Industrial Zone distribution facility represents the most direct occupied-territory infrastructure involvement. Who Profits Research Centre documents CBC as operating logistics and cooling houses in the zone, characterised as serving Jerusalem consumers and West Bank settlement distribution. Whether this facility remains operationally active post-October 2023 is unconfirmed. The inference that Costa-branded products may transit this facility is structurally plausible - Costa is a TCCC subsidiary and CBC holds the Israeli Coca-Cola franchise - but no public source confirms a specific Costa supply relationship through Atarot.⁴¹¹⁵

CBC subsidiaries’ settlement-adjacent activities add economic weight: Meshek Zuriel Dairy’s operation in Shadmot Mehola (Area C, Jordan Valley settlement) is documented at medium confidence; Tabor Winery’s sourcing from Golan Heights and disputed West Bank locations is supported by Who Profits and the winery’s own disclosures, though West Bank sourcing is not independently confirmed in major news reporting.¹¹⁹²⁰

Parent-Level: TCCC’s “The Bridge” accelerator in Tel Aviv connects Israeli startups to TCCC’s commercial network. The programme’s current operational status (post-2020) is unconfirmed. CBC’s $2 million investment in Biomilk (July 2021) is verified but represents a franchisee-level investment in an Israeli food-tech startup; the causal claim that this creates a direct financial conduit from Costa Coffee revenues to Israeli economic activity is an inferential chain rather than a documented direct relationship.^11122213

Transfer Pricing Ruling: The August 2024 Tel Aviv District Court ruling formally recognised a “special relationship” between TCCC and CBC, finding that TCCC’s concentrate payments embedded royalty components for IP and brand use, and that CBC had underpaid tax. This constitutes judicial recognition of economic interdependence but does not establish equity ownership or control.²⁶³⁵

Supply Chain: No direct Costa contracts with Israeli produce exporters (Mehadrin, Hadiklaim, Galilee Export) have been identified. Israel’s structural role as a supplier of fresh herbs, cherry tomatoes, peppers, and Medjool dates to the UK market - particularly during winter months - is documented at sector level, but no Costa-specific sourcing has been confirmed. Costa’s food-to-go range is manufactured by UK contract producers (Greencore, Bakkavor) under finished-goods supply arrangements, with no named Israeli ingredient sub-supplier identified.^{232421252682728293031}

Counter-Arguments and Evidence Limits

1. Corporate separation limits direct attribution. Costa Coffee Ltd is a separate legal entity from CBC. Under standard corporate law, CBC’s occupied-territory operations do not create direct legal liability for Costa Coffee Ltd or automatically establish economic complicity. The OHCHR UN Database of businesses with operations in Israeli settlements (A/HRC/43/71, February 2020) does not list Costa Coffee.⁵

2. No confirmed Costa-specific supply relationship through Atarot. The inference chain - CBC distributes Coca-Cola products in Israel, Costa is a TCCC subsidiary, therefore Costa products likely flow through Atarot - is structurally plausible but not confirmed by any public document naming a specific distribution agreement, warehouse manifest, or supply contract. The prior report presented this as established fact; the evidence supports it as an inferential chain only.

3. Biomilk investment is franchisee-level. CBC, not TCCC or Costa, made the $2 million Biomilk investment. Attributing this to Costa Coffee would require a transitive guilt standard this dossier explicitly rejects.

4. Settlement sourcing is unconfirmed at Tabor Winery. The winery’s own disclosures reference Golan Heights sourcing. West Bank sourcing claims appear in activist literature but are not independently confirmed in corporate filings or major news reporting.

5. “The Bridge” status is unconfirmed. The most recent public confirmation of TCCC’s Tel Aviv accelerator predates 2020. Whether it remains operational, has been restructured, or was wound down cannot be determined from available public records.

6. UK regulatory compliance. No DEFRA enforcement action, advisory notice, or fine has been issued naming Costa Coffee or its Tier 1 food manufacturers in connection with settlement-produce labelling. Current labelling (“Produced in the UK”) is consistent with the applicable regulatory framework.³²

Named Entities and Evidence Map

Political: Political

Mechanism of Involvement

The political nexus for Costa Coffee derives primarily from three documented factors: (1) civil society boycott designations citing CBC’s franchisee operations and Atarot facility; (2) CBC’s institutional market dominance creating structural presence in Israeli state-adjacent procurement; and (3) parent-company absence of public statement on the Israel-Gaza conflict, contrasted with public actions on other geopolitical crises.

Boycott Campaign Designations: The BDS National Committee lists Coca-Cola as a boycott target, citing CBC’s franchisee relationship and Atarot Industrial Zone operations. Costa Coffee, as a TCCC subsidiary, is included by extension in BDS campaign materials. The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (UK) similarly includes Coca-Cola group products - encompassing Costa Coffee - in its boycott guidance. The specific claim of a formal PSC “Strategic Boycott Target” re-designation for Costa Coffee in March 2025 with that precise language and date is unconfirmed; the substantiated underlying finding is PSC’s inclusion of Coca-Cola group products on its boycott list.¹¹¹²

Corporate Asymmetry: Costa Coffee publicly suspended operations in Russia following the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, citing civilian harm. The Coca-Cola Company issued a parallel announcement on 8 March 2022. No comparable public acknowledgement of Palestinian civilian casualties, occupation, or the ICJ Advisory Opinion of July 2024 has been identified in the communications of Costa Coffee or TCCC.¹⁰⁴¹⁶

CBC Institutional Dominance: CBC holds approximately two-thirds of the Israeli carbonated soft drink market and distributes Prigat juice and Neviot water across Israel’s institutional sector, including the IDF Shekem canteen network - a market-structure inference, not a verified named contract. The 2019 Israel Competition Authority fine (NIS 62.7 million) for abuse of dominant market position demonstrates CBC’s market concentration and willingness to use that position to bundle Coca-Cola and Tara Dairy products.¹⁰

Im Tirtzu Donation: CBC donated NIS 50,000 to Im Tirtzu in 2015, as reported by The New Arab and i24NEWS in May 2017, citing Israeli non-profit registry filings. Im Tirtzu is a right-wing political advocacy organisation. The precise donation amount and year are sourced from activist-compiled filings and not independently confirmed in CBC corporate disclosures. No care-package coordination role for Im Tirtzu is supported by evidence.⁷¹²⁸

Counter-Arguments and Evidence Limits

1. No named contract with Israeli state or military. The structural inference that CBC likely supplies IDF canteens because of its market dominance does not establish a named contract. No framework agreement, tender award, or IDF procurement record names CBC as a contracted Shekem supplier.

2. Franchise separation. Costa Coffee Ltd is not CBC. No public document confirms that Costa-branded products are specifically distributed by CBC or through the Atarot facility. Boycott campaign designations citing Costa as a TCCC subsidiary reflect campaign strategy, not operational evidence of Costa-specific involvement.

3. Absence of statement is not a policy position. The absence of a public statement on the Israel-Gaza conflict, while notable in contrast to the Russia suspension, does not constitute affirmative political action. Many companies do not issue geopolitical statements on every international conflict.

4. Im Tirtzu donation is political, not military. A donation to a political advocacy organisation - however contentious its views - is not itself a military contribution. The “care packages” characterisation that appeared in prior reports conflated a political donation with logistics activity.

5. ICJ Advisory Opinion has no direct binding effect on Costa Coffee. While the July 2024 ICJ opinion has implications for third-state and private actor obligations under discussion, no binding enforcement mechanism, regulatory action, or formal legal proceeding specifically targeting Costa Coffee or TCCC has been identified.¹³

6. Prior claims excluded. Claims regarding a 2009 Coca-Cola reception for Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, Coca-Cola sponsorship of Israel-America Chamber of Commerce “Platinum” events, and a Peter Villegas/DMFI board position - all from prior research materials - are not confirmed by major news sources or corporate records and are excluded as unverified.

Named Entities and Evidence Map

BDS-1000 Score (V4)

Final Score Table

• V_MAX: 0.36 Sum_OTHERS: 0.20
• BRS Score: 25 Tier: E (Minimal)

Score Narrative

The Military and Digital domains score zero: no defence contracts, dual-use products, named Israeli technology vendors, or military/intelligence service relationships have been identified for Costa Coffee in any public source reviewed across both audits. The Economic score (0.36) is driven by CBC’s documented distribution presence in the Atarot Industrial Zone (occupied East Jerusalem), CBC subsidiary operations in Israeli settlements (Jordan Valley dairy), parent-level Tel Aviv accelerator activity, and a franchisee-level Biomilk investment - all documented at franchisee or parent level with significant attribution distance from Costa Coffee Ltd itself. The Political score (0.20) reflects civil society boycott designations, CBC’s structural institutional market presence, the disputed Im Tirtzu donation, and TCCC’s absence of public statement on the Gaza conflict contrasted with its Russia suspension - all low-to-medium confidence structural factors rather than affirmative political actions by Costa Coffee.

The BRS 25 / Tier E (Minimal) designation reflects documented but franchisee-mediated and parent-company-level involvement with no confirmed direct operational ties between Costa Coffee Ltd and Israeli military, settlement, or state institutions.

Methodology Note

The BDS-1000 V4 methodology applies the following principles:

• Evidence-only scoring: All domain scores derive exclusively from documented findings in the four domain audits. No claim is scored absent supporting evidence. “No public evidence identified” is used wherever audits found nothing; such findings contribute zero to scoring.
• Scale-free Impact (I) × Magnitude/Proximity (M) × Pathway (P) = V: Each domain score is computed from component scores calibrated across the audit corpus. Military and Digital found no documented involvement pathways; Economic and Political reflect documented franchisee and parent-company activities with appropriate attribution caveats.
• Temporal rule - divested/exited operations mitigated: Where entities have divested, exited, or restructured operations, such changes are reflected in the scoring. Costa Coffee has no direct Israeli operations to divest.
• Entity attribution - no transitive guilt: Scores do not impute parent-company or franchisee activities to subsidiary entities absent a direct operational nexus. CBC’s activities are attributed to the franchisee relationship; TCCC’s activities are attributed to the parent; neither automatically cascades to Costa Coffee Ltd without specific documented linkage.
• Settlement operations dual-count Economic + Political: Where an operation is documented in occupied territory, it is scored in both the economic and political domains to reflect the distinct mechanisms of financial sustainment and political legitimisation.
• “No public evidence identified” is a finding, not an absence: This formulation indicates that documented checks were performed and found nothing - it is not a statement that the activity is definitively absent, only that it has not been evidenced in the public record.

End Notes