In a case of life imitating art — or at least imitating a bad pun — a huge stash of cocaine has been found in a Coca-Cola factory.

Workers found the drug cache when they opened a delivery of fruit juice concentrate from Costa Rica at their factory in southern France.

Local newspaper Var-Matin said the haul weighed 370 kilograms, with a potential street value of around 50 million euros ($74 million).

Those figures could not be confirmed by Coca-Cola and the local prosecutor could not be reached for comment.

"You can well imagine the surprise," said a spokesman for Coca-Cola, adding that the workers alerted police and were ruled out as potential suspects.

The stash was hidden inside a container of juice that was opened on arrival at the factory in the town of Signes on August 26.

While the original Coca-Cola formula developed by John Pemberton in 1886 called for coca leaves, the precursor to cocaine, modern formulations are cocaine-free.

Reuters