Locked up in bank vaults in various parts of the world. The 'recipes' or formulas are closely guarded secrets, known to only a few people in each company, sometimes known to only two people who never fly on the same plane, are rarely even in the same city together, have highly trained body guards, and all sorts of other 'safety' measures taken. In some instances the entire formula is not known by any individual, for example the formula for DrPepper is divided into two lists kept in different banks, at most two people have access to each half. It's doubtful that any company would resort to kidnapping or extortion to gain access to a rivals formula, other industrial espionage does take place as well as constant chemical analysis of the competitors product. The soft drink labs have some of the latest highest tech analysis devices of any labs in the world. If the recipes were to be protected by patents (if, in fact, such things can be patented) the ingredients, precise amounts, and processes would have to be listed, a competitor could change a few ingredients by as little as one part per million and come out with a product, that for all practical purposes, was identical. If you want the actual recipes you'll have to hire a CPA,( Cola & Pop Agent, not a Colloquial Phrase Administrator or bookkeeper with a degree), to find and break into the vaults. Even then you may wind up with half the DrPepper formula and half the Mountain Dew formula, mixed together they may explode in a CPA, Calamatous Pressure Accident. (Orange, I'm as surprized as you are. I do try to give a legitimate answer to the question before letting the idiocies take over. Sometimes they do creep into the answer, but even then I try to give at least 'useful', if not totally correct info, to best of my knowledge or research. [ Some may want citations, but now that this answer is on the web it is as reliable as much other info on the web. A Google for 'softdrink formulas' ' secret soda formulae' or similar will bring up pages of sites to cite.] In this instance the first two paragraphs are basically correct and answered the question sufficiently, without having to add anymore. Or could be that since I type so slowly, by the time I get two paragraphs finished, the drugs begin to wear off, or perhaps take effect.[nmj, 04-25-06])