Coke's sugar suppliers are running on empty in Venezuela so production is shutting down.
The company confirmed in an email to Reuters that it is suspending production of sugar-sweetened drinks after suppliers informed them they had run out of raw materials.
Coke says it will continue production of Coca-Cola Light and other sugar-free alternatives.
Venezuela is suffering from a deep economic crisis with daily blackouts, bare supermarket shelves and shortages of vital medicines.
Last week the increasingly unpopular president, Nicolas Maduro, announced the military would conduct a massive exercises across the country to better prepare from the claimed threat of US invasion. The opposition says it was an effort to distract the country from economic mismanagement.
The US Office of Agricultural Affairs says that over the past few years Venezuelan farmers have been hampered by price restrictions, strict employment laws, lack of access to foreign currency and shortages of fertiliser. El Niño drought conditions have also had an impact.
Smaller farmers have turned to other crops which aren't subject to price controls, the office says, while government run producers have become increasingly inefficient. The US estimates as much as 20% of sugar production is being smuggled to Colombia in order to fetch higher prices.
Venezuela no longer publishes statistics on production.
Venezuela suffers from the world's highest rate of inflation. Despite the government halving the value of the currency in recent years, many Venezuelans can still only trade the currency on the black market for a fraction of its official rate.
Sugar production has fallen significantly in the Latin American country. Source: AAP
The country's economic collapse in recent years is partly sparked by the massive fall in oil prices. The commodity accounts for more than 95% of the country's exports.
“They made the assumption that oil prices would remain high and they didn’t use the fat years wisely,” an international development official told SBS.
