Brasília - President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva got some heavy-weight support for the Zero Hunger program with announcement that Coca-Cola will expand its community restaurant program, which serves 300 meals a day at R$1 each in a pilot program that is operational in Porto Alegre. The expansion will begin in Belo Horizonte, to be followed by at least 15 more restaurants in other cities where the company has factories. The real cost of meal in a Coca-Cola community restaurant is R$2.28, but the company subsidizes the cost.

On Friday the president of Coca-Cola of Brazil, Brian Smith, met with Lula and also announced that the firm will invest R$550 million in the country next year, an increase of 10% over this year's investments. Smith said he was optimistic about growth in Brazil and is enthusiastic with the new measures by the government which should bring in new investments. Smith said he hoped to see an upturn in the second half of this year, after Coca-Cola had a drop of 6% in sales during the first half of 2003.

At the moment, Coca-Cola spends R$48 million on some 100 different community action programs in Brazil. The payoff is that Brazil is now Coca-Cola's third biggest market in the world, behind only the United States and Mexico. (AB)