Can someone explain ownerships when it comes to soft drinks?

[Vern_in_IL]

So Does Coca Cola own the flavors or are they like independent subsidiaries?

Or is like Mello Yellow some sort of sub contractor working for Coca-Cola? Reason I ask is they print on the bottles "bottled under the authority of" and like Lipton Tea, you got "bottled under the Lipton/Pepsi partnership"

I drive by the local warehouses(that load up the trucks) and they seem limited, like one warehouse would only be "Dr. Pepper/7up" only....

and who owns and operates the bottlers, most, if not all, are independent bottlers. Does CocaCola contract out to the lowest bidder, or is it more a regional thing?

and why does this weirdness only apply to soft drinks? I don't see a Tylenol bottle, or anything else declaring authority on the packaging....
All I can think of is this is a Monopoly and to enter the market, instead of building your own bottling plant, you bend the knee to Big Soda..

 

[measureman]

This really intense.
Congress should appoint a special prosecutor to look into this.

 

[KGMtech]

Pepperidge Farm remembers when soft drinks were simple.

 

[bdcardinal]

So the soft drinks are bottled in different locations to allow fresh product in as many places as possible. Dr Pepper has different distributorship contracts around the country using both Coke and Pepsi distributors. That is why in some places you see Dr Pepper with Coke and in other Mr Pibb with Coke.

Also some products are only available through certain sources. My service manager owned a 7-11 and I asked him once about getting a case of 20oz Caffeine Free Dit Coke bottles. He said they would only sell them to stores directly and not in case form to the general public. Same thing with the Lays chips that are the Grab Bag size versus the small 1oz bags (I give those out at Halloween).

 

[SZR48207]

Also, it's widely known that caffeine is added to soda to make it addicting, but nobody seems to be mad at Coke and Pepsi for doing this.

 

[Skippy722]

Mello Yello was created by Coca Cola in 1979 and has always been a Coke product. As for the bottling... I’m not yet caffeinated enough to understand it.

Dr. Pepper/7up is owned by Keurig Dr. Pepper Inc, which is why you can sometimes find them along with Coke products (like McDonald’s) and sometimes with Pepsi products.

Also, it's widely known that caffeine is added to soda to make it addicting, but nobody seems to be mad at Coke and Pepsi for doing this.

Don’t you take away my caffeine!

 

[Warstud]

Coca Cola owns alot of different brands.
From Fiviz : The Coca-Cola Company, a beverage company, manufactures, markets, and sells various nonalcoholic beverages worldwide. The company provides sparkling soft drinks; water, enhanced water, and sports drinks; juice, dairy, and plantAbased beverages; tea and coffee; and energy drinks. It also offers beverage concentrates and syrups, as well as fountain syrups to fountain retailers, such as restaurants and convenience stores. The company sells its products under the Coca-Cola, Diet Coke/Coca-Cola Light, Coca-Cola Zero Sugar, Fanta, Fresca, Schweppes, Sprite, Thums Up, Aquarius, Ciel, Dasani, glaceau smartwater, glaceau vitaminwater, Ice Dew, I LOHAS, Powerade, Topo Chico, AdeS, Del Valle, fairlife, innocent, Minute Maid, Minute Maid Pulpy, Simply, ZICO, Ayataka, Costa, dogadan, FUZE TEA, Georgia, Gold Peak, HONEST TEA, and Kochakaden brands. It operates through a network of company-owned or controlled bottling and distribution operators, as well as through independent bottling partners, distributors, wholesalers, and retailers. The company was founded in 1886 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.

 

[ecotourist]

I assume Coca Cola produces the flavour, then local bottlers buy flavour and produce product under license. Soft drinks are heavy and it wouldn't make sense to ship them thousands of miles. And anyway the product needs to be delivered to the local outlets and someone would have to do that.

When I was a kid there was a local bottler who had their own products. I suppose that Coca Cola et al out-competed them.

 

[Hall]

and who owns and operates the bottlers, most, if not all, are independent bottlers. Does CocaCola contract out to the lowest bidder, or is it more a regional thing?

Years ago, Pepsi "sold" the bottling rights to private companies and these were typically regionalized. They obviously had to buy the flavoring from Pepsi and follow their recipe to the letter and I'm guessing they could only produce Pepsi products (in a given facility). Their cans or bottles even included their private names (in small print) with that "authority" wording. Over the past decade or so, if I'm not mistaken, Pepsi started buying the private bottlers and taking things back under their control. Coca-Cola has always owned/operated their regional bottling facilities, I thought.

 

[SoNic67]

Example - a bottling plant in a plant located in a country from former Eastern Europe. Pepsi had a work relation with the Eastern Block, bottling under license. A Pepsi bottle it was a luxury item for those people, hard to get.

That plant is either owned by a subsidiary of Pepsi Cola/Coca Cola registered in that country or, more often, by a licensed local agent that is allowed (by that license) to label it's products as "bottled under Pepsi of Coca authority/partnership".

Local agent provides the water, workforce, CO2 and sometimes the raw plastic bottles (they came in a small, not expanded, shape). He also pays utilities. Land sometimes is leased for 99 years (some countries don't sell land to foreign corporations).
Pepsi or Coca will send the concentrated "mix" that contains the flavor. The mixing with water is very precise and monitored.
Every few hours a bottle explodes (which sounds like a shotgun blast) and those standing on the production line pulling off filled bottles get soaked.

When I was kid, one of my friends could get hold of bottles of Pepsi concentrate.
It was like a heavy syrup, that I have to dilute it with carbonated water (soda). If the mix was just a bit off, it tasted bad. Like when the soda machines in fast food places runs out of syrup or carbonation. Too sweet, to watery, not carbonated... it was an art.

PS: This is 1 L bottle before expansion:

 

[wpod]

Back in the late 1970s and early 1980s I drove as a Teamster casual driver for Coca Cola U.S.A we hauled tankers of the Coke syrup and other flavors from San Leandro California to Salt Lake city and a couple other places . Coca Cola U.S.A was the Corporation that sold the concentrate to the bottlers. I would guess things could have changed

 

[SoNic67]

I don't see a Tylenol bottle, or anything else declaring authority on the packaging

Because generics can be made, many companies can make "Tylenol-like" drugs, without their approval. Can't use the registered name though.
Also many companies make "Coca cola" like or "Pepsi Cola" like sodas.
RC Cola story is interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RC_Cola

 

[ctechbob]

There's an interesting documentary on Dublin Dr. Pepper that addresses some of the issues around bottlers and their agreements with 'big cola'

BOTTLED UP: THE BATTLE OVER DUBLIN DR PEPPER

On Amazon Prime:

 

[kschachn]

Also, it's widely known that caffeine is added to soda to make it addicting, but nobody seems to be mad at Coke and Pepsi for doing this.

The pause that refreshes.

 

[manicrodder]

Example - a bottling plant in a plant located in a country from former Eastern Europe. Pepsi had a work relation with the Eastern Block, bottling under license. A Pepsi bottle it was a luxury item for those people, hard to get.

That plant is either owned by a subsidiary of Pepsi Cola/Coca Cola registered in that country or, more often, by a licensed local agent that is allowed (by that license) to label it's products as "bottled under Pepsi of Coca authority/partnership".

Local agent provides the water, workforce, CO2 and sometimes the raw plastic bottles (they came in a small, not expanded, shape). He also pays utilities. Land sometimes is leased for 99 years (some countries don't sell land to foreign corporations).
Pepsi or Coca will send the concentrated "mix" that contains the flavor. The mixing with water is very precise and monitored.
Every few hours a bottle explodes (which sounds like a shotgun blast) and those standing on the production line pulling off filled bottles get soaked.

When I was kid, one of my friends could get hold of bottles of Pepsi concentrate.
It was like a heavy syrup, that I have to dilute it with carbonated water (soda). If the mix was just a bit off, it tasted bad. Like when the soda machines in fast food places runs out of syrup or carbonation. Too sweet, to watery, not carbonated... it was an art.

PS: This is 1 L bottle before expansion:

Maybe for babies. It looks like a nipple.

 

[BHopkins]

Also, it's widely known that caffeine is added to soda to make it addicting, but nobody seems to be mad at Coke and Pepsi for doing this.

While I won't dispute that Coke and Pepsi surely enjoy the benefit of addiction that caffeine has, it is also added for the bitterness. That bitterness gives Coke fans the illusion that it is lower in sugar than other soft drinks. Of course, nothing could be farther from the truth.

 

[BHopkins]

Example - a bottling plant in a plant located in a country from former Eastern Europe. Pepsi had a work relation with the Eastern Block, bottling under license. A Pepsi bottle it was a luxury item for those people, hard to get.

That plant is either owned by a subsidiary of Pepsi Cola/Coca Cola registered in that country or, more often, by a licensed local agent that is allowed (by that license) to label it's products as "bottled under Pepsi of Coca authority/partnership".

Local agent provides the water, workforce, CO2 and sometimes the raw plastic bottles (they came in a small, not expanded, shape). He also pays utilities. Land sometimes is leased for 99 years (some countries don't sell land to foreign corporations).
Pepsi or Coca will send the concentrated "mix" that contains the flavor. The mixing with water is very precise and monitored.
Every few hours a bottle explodes (which sounds like a shotgun blast) and those standing on the production line pulling off filled bottles get soaked.

When I was kid, one of my friends could get hold of bottles of Pepsi concentrate.
It was like a heavy syrup, that I have to dilute it with carbonated water (soda). If the mix was just a bit off, it tasted bad. Like when the soda machines in fast food places runs out of syrup or carbonation. Too sweet, to watery, not carbonated... it was an art.

PS: This is 1 L bottle before expansion:

I'm pretty sure some bottling companies blow mold their own bottles. A local water bottling plant gets huge deliveries of resin pellets.

 

[SevenBizzos]

Yeah, most direct delivered by a regional bottler. This is why you'll see different flavor availability, pack quantities, and bottle sizes when you visit other places.

 

[SoNic67]

I'm pretty sure some bottling companies blow mold their own bottles.

In my example, the emission rules were the water wells are located didn't allow for the molding plant. So they come from a different plant, not very far away.

 

[Hall]

PS: This is 1 L bottle before expansion:

Haha, I have some of those as well as some for what are I presume 2-liter bottles