How a key ingredient in Coca-Cola, M&M's is smuggled from war-torn Sudan
73 comments
·March 5, 2025jmkd
ceejayoz
60% of IV fluids used in the US came from a single manufacturing plant that got hit by a hurricane last year. https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2024/11/19/nx...
My wife gets regular infusions and had to ration for months; the local hospital canceled elective surgeries as well.
ipsum2
IV fluids aren't even difficult to produce compared to gum arabic, its just different salts in water. This is just pure government regulation causing rationing and harming people.
For those downvoting me, here's the American Medical Association:
https://www.ama-assn.org/delivering-care/public-health/fixin...
> The Biden administration has invoked the Defense Production Act “to help speed up recovery efforts and get that North Cove plant back up and running,” Garcia noted. Hospitals, meanwhile, are turning to alternative options such as hydration tablets and sports drinks while prioritizing IV fluids for the higher-acuity and higher-risk patients.
> The FDA, meanwhile, has “released new guidance that eases up on rules regarding the compounding of IV solutions,” she added. “That's to make it easier for hospitals and other facilities to do this during the shortage period.”
NBC https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/long-helene-iv-fl...:
> So, why are these essential fluids — a lifeline for hospitals — so hard to come by?
> As is often the case with drug shortages, it comes down to money, and IV fluids don’t bring in much of it for manufacturers, said Erin Fox, senior pharmacy director at the University of Utah Health.
> “These are life-saving products, but at the same time these are absolutely treated as kind of commodities,” Fox said.
> The high barrier to entry — including the time and cost required to meet the regulatory requirements for setting up a manufacturing facility — along with the pressure to keep prices low, means drugmakers aren’t really motivated to jump into the market, Fox said.
NPR: https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2024/10/11/nx...
> On Wednesday, the Food and Drug Administration announced it has authorized 19 IV products for temporary importation from Canada, China, Ireland and the U.K.
weaksauce
> This is just pure government regulation causing rationing and harming people.
having worked in the space... you are at the level of knowledge of "you don't know what you don't know." it's regulated for good reason. WFI is ultra pure water and costs quite a bit of money to make and is one of the main ingredients in a lot of pharmaceuticals.
csours
If we're being reductionist, it's just corporations being greedy! This is a fun game.
IV fluids aren't difficult to produce, but it IS difficult to produce PACKAGED IV fluids consistently, every time, in such a way that they don't make people sick.
Because that is difficult and important, there are tests and certifications. In turn the tests and certifications are difficult - and yes at this point there is extra cost, and that extra cost becomes a moat, which drives up price.
Unfortunately, the moat is both consumer protection and rent seeking business advantage. That is, part of the excess cost beyond the base ingredients goes to protecting consumers, however a lot of the excess cost comes from the fact that not everyone is willing to undergo all of the paperwork and process that consumers and insurance have asked the government to require.
You are not completely wrong, just mostly wrong.
"Pure government regulation" is so rare as to be non-existent in most people's daily life. "Government regulation" is someone's moat. Sometimes it's a consumer group, sometimes it's special interest, sometimes it's a business. Very rarely it is for the government's own sake.
frereubu
With respect, any time someone writes "just" in a sentence like this I'm immediately suspicious that it comes from a place of ignorance. What is your qualification to make such a sweeping statement?
ceejayoz
There’s a little more to it than that when making something that gets injected directly to the bloodstream, often in medically compromised patients.
neuronexmachina
My understanding is that the challenges around IV fluids aren't around producing the fluid, but rather ensuring that the containers are sterile and remain sterile.
mmooss
> IV fluids don’t bring in much of it for manufacturers
It looks like the problem is a for-profit health system. I want IV fluids, injected directly into the bloodstream of very sick people, to be very carefully regulated.
kiritanpo
The essentiality of the product is debatable, but ~80% of maple syrup production comes from Canada, 91% of that from the province of Quebec.
China produces ~80% of the world's magnesium. Cobalt comes mostly from Congo.
In the 40-50% range, there is Kazakhstan with uranium and Australia with lithium.
You can explore more here: https://worldpopulationreview.com/search?query=production&fi...
staplung
~70% of the world's phosphate reserves are in Morocco. Considering how important phosphates are to the entire planet's food security I'd rate it near the top of the list. Practically speaking, phosphates are a non-renewable resource.
Aloisius
Only ~13% of the world's phosphate is mined in Morocco today, so it's a rather different situation.
And of course, phosphate reserves are only a small portion (0.02%) of the world's estimated phosphate resources.
Havoc
Yeah there are a couple of resource concentrations in Africa that aren’t immediately obvious.
Platinum group metals, phosphorus, manganese, cobalt etc all pretty Africa heavy usually one or two countries
oersted
And yet Gum Arabic is extremely cheap for the amounts needed.
At $4-$7 per Kg in the US, the cost per Coke can would be in the order of 0.025 cents (guesstimate).
This is interesting considering that 80% of the supply comes from Sudan.
It is a nearly universal ingredient in processed foods and professional kitchens. I wonder how the economics work to push the price down.
EDIT: Apparently naturally abundant Acacia trees produce it with barely any oversight and it is easy to harvest in large quantities compared to how much volume is needed in end-products. I suppose if Sudan tried to squeeze their monopoly other suppliers would easily come up in other regions. The reason for the monopoly must simply be a combination of a favorable environment and the fact that they are willing to do it very cheaply because unfortunately they don’t have many other options to sustain themselves.
geraneum
> I wonder how the economics work to push the price down.
Maybe it’s not only the economic strategies that push the price down?
bpodgursky
> I suppose if Sudan tried to squeeze their monopoly other suppliers would easily come up in other regions.
There are a lot of goods like this, where the market has consolidated around the cheapest supplier for convenience but if that supplier disappeared the next-cheapest one would be fine at 10% more. It looks like a catastrophic chokepoint on the economy but it's really not a big deal.
xyst
Time to start up a business as a “conflict free” gum arabic supplier.
Maybe they will make a movie about it: Lord of Gum <WIP>
sudahtigabulan
It's not "lord of gum", it's "gumlord".
RandomBacon
I think they are referencing the Nicolas Cage movie, Lord of War.
deadbabe
I like his way better
the-chitmonger
How about Gumdog Millionaire?
trhway
the conflict in Sudan isn't without usual players and the non-"conflict free" gum money go to Putin too :
https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/20/africa/wagner-sudan-russia-li...
"The Russian mercenary group Wagner has been supplying Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces with missiles to aid their fight against the country’s army, Sudanese and regional diplomatic sources have told CNN."
dod9er
They should just pull a Trump and call IT a Deal.
cess11
"I wonder how the economics work to push the price down."
Nomads and colonisers mostly. Interesting keywords/phrases to look into might include janjaweed, Muammar Ghadaffi, Omar al-Bashir, genocide in Darfur, United Arab Emirates, anglo-egyptian forces.
There are also tangential events worth looking into, like the 1998 attack on the Al-Shifa factory.
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0xbadcafebee
If you don't want your corporation's supply chain at risk, maybe use your lobbying dollars to ask the executive branch to actually support foreign nations rather than let them fall into civil war.
Sudan has had a military dictatorship from 1989-2019 (led by Omar al-Bashir).
In 2017, both President Obama and President Trump lifted sanctions on Sudan, after al-Bashir reneged on a promise to step down just two years earlier.
In 2018/2019, price hikes resulted in massive protests and a subsequent revolution against al-Bashir. This finally resolved in 2019, when a joint military-civilian political agreement, constitution, and council were formed. At that point, lots of aid was needed in order to rebuild and stabilize the country, but as usual, actually getting that money was difficult. The bulk of it came from Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
In 2021, there were two more coups.
In 2023, a new civil war broke out between the military dictatorship and a paramilitary branch of it. That war is still persisting. War crimes are rampant, mass-murder and genocide persist, almost the entire country cannot afford food. The main backer of the paramilitary group preventing the conflict from ending is the UAE.
InitialLastName
That may be learning the wrong lesson. US corporations have used "securing supply chains" to justify encouraging the US government to incite a whole lot of strife and conflict around the world in the last century-and-a-bit.
FuriouslyAdrift
Yeah we destablised a whole nation (ok much more than one) just to secure a supply of bananas.
"From 1954 onward Guatemala was ruled by a series of US-backed military dictators, leading to the Guatemalan Civil War which lasted until 1996. Approximately 200,000 civilians were killed in the war, and numerous human rights violations committed, including massacres of civilian populations, rape, aerial bombardment, and forced disappearances"
Sabinus
To be fair, the government did it to 'stop communism'. The US fruit companies persuaded the government to 'stop communism' because they wanted to secure cheap bananas.
mmooss
> strife and conflict
Also, a lot of oppression in the name of stability.
genewitch
yes please, find another ingredient that doesn't involve smuggling it out of a war-torn country, at the very least. Unfortunately i didn't know this when i bought some and now i got a giant tub of conflict gum that i'll probably never use. I got it to make "Chocolate Frosty" that wouldn't have the tiny ice crystals in it. It didn't work, i think you have to put it in something that is hot in order to activate it, and i didn't want to experiment to find out which part i could heat up without affecting the end result.
there are other gums, too. And now that i know about the collection of gum arabic i'll avoid it in processed stuff, too. I already boycott nestle, and i can do without coca-cola, too.
Aloisius
Coca-cola itself doesn't appear to contain gum arabic, at least not in the US.
Outside the US, there are Coca-cola products that do though like some Schweppes and Fanta sodas.
zdragnar
What do you think the executive branch of the USA could have done to prevent any of this instability? al-Burhan hardly seems better than al-Bashir.
0xbadcafebee
1) don't reward a dictator after renegging on promises by allowing them more trade
2) use foreign policy maneuvers to pressure UAE to end its support for the paramilitary group
3) provide aid of our own which strengthens our position and gives us more options to end the paramilitary group's reign
4) install a new dictator. it's not a good option, but if the previous options don't work, I think the citizens of Sudan would admit it's better than genocide and starvation at this point.
Remember back in "Trump 1.0", when he stopped us from being involved in foreign affairs "because America First", and there were warnings that a lack of American presence would create a power vacuum that our enemies would fill? This is that outcome.
If we had been the ones providing aid instead of the Saudis and the UAE, this whole recent catastrophe might have been avoided. An important lesson for the current administration as they continue to end foreign aid to gain cheap political points.
And granted, I know a whole lot of people go "so what?" to genocide and starvation, but also Coke & M&Ms are now more expensive, so maybe that'll matter to them.
BurningFrog
Pretty sure the Sudanese civil wars are due to conflicts within Sudan, not US foreign policy.
ToucanLoucan
Bold of you to assume the Government wouldn't install a dictator as their method of "supporting" a foreign nation. As though we haven't stomped popular left-leaning governments into the dirt via sponsoring military coups numerous times.
Hell, I don't know anything about Sudan, but if you told me the CIA installed Omar al-Bashir to ensure the continued cheap supply of Gum Arabic, I wouldn't necessarily believe you, but I wouldn't call you a liar either.
alexey-salmin
> Bold of you to assume the Government wouldn't install a dictator as their method of "supporting" a foreign nation.
Well he immediately suggested to "install a new dictator" in the adjacent comment. [1] I figure dictators are OK as long as the spice keeps flowing.
drivebyhooting
Ridiculous. The money is better spent establishing local production.
nielsbot
(saved you a click)
It's gum arabic.
> Sudan produces around 80 per cent of the world’s gum arabic, a natural substance harvested from acacia trees that’s used widely to mix, stabilise and thicken ingredients in mass-market products including L’Oreal lipsticks and Nestle pet food.
latexr
The “key ingredient” is “gum arabic”.
bdcravens
Literally the first sentence in the article:
"Gum arabic, a vital ingredient used in everything...."
The identity of this secret isn't what makes this article worth reading.
latexr
I know it’s in the first sentence, I read the article, that’s how I know what the ingredient is. The point of my comment was to reduce the click-bait so people are better informed regarding if they want to read more or not, and provide an easy reference for more information.
btbuildem
Exactly. How hard would it have been to include the two words "gum arabic" in the title in the first place?
pvg
It mostly creates a thread of meta, as you can see.
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card_zero
Unexpectedly, this additive has an extensive "health benefits" section.
LordShredda
This seems to be a thing with a lot of wikipedia articles on various foods, especially in other languages.
myself248
Thanks, saved me a click.
soneca
I think which ingredient is being smuggled from a war-tone is the least interesting part of the article for me
genewitch
it is (to me), if you want to know what not to buy. That's the easiest and practically, the only thing that a majority of people can do with this information.
anon84873628
By clicking into the comments instead of the article?
dijksterhuis
not parent, but i often scan comments to get an idea of if it’s worth bothering to read an article.
i was more interested in what the ingredient was. the fact its being smuggled (a) doesn’t surprise me and (b) isn’t something im particularly interested in learning about.
so, in this case, it wasn’t worth opening the article for me. i learned what i wanted to learn during my normal comment scan that i usually do with titles like this (outside my wheel house).
oinkbutton
Knowing it's gum Arabic isn't the core thing the article is exploring.
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meetkevin
[dead]
80% of the world's supply comes from Sudan...that is certainly a surprise. I'd love to see a table of some of the world's most essential goods that have 80% or more reliance on a single market.