a coke bottling plant rep just told me that if I buy Coke products from Sam's Club and put them in my vending machine that I own it would be illegal because I am not selling Coke from the bottling plant in his territory.
Does he have a point or is it bogus?

Just my arm chair guess. [img]smile.gif[/img]
First,if you out right own a pop machine whether it be Coke,Pepsi or what ever,I believe you may need to strip the signage from the machine. The actual machine you can stock it with what ever you want.(The reason,you would be advertising coke products and selling non Coke products.)

Second,as well, if you buy the Coke products directly from the bottling plant from another territory and had them shipped (commercial truck) then the local bottler would have an issue. The local bottler has the territorial rights as granted by Coca Cola to sell Coke products.

Now if you buy from a local wholesaler or a retailer a quantity of cases or cubes of soda pop, you would not be infringing on the local territorial rights of that Coke bottler. As a customer of a whole sale or retail outlet, the local bottler could not enforce it's territorial rights on you but the local whole sale or retail outlet. I believe legally if you buy whole sale or retail soda pop from local vendors, the local Coke bottler has no legal right to stop you from doing from vending Coke products from your privately owned machine.

I know our fellow board mates will chime in with more feed back. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[ 03-07-2006, 03:41 AM: Message edited by: Mr Zabe ]

SCREW THE LOCAL COKE DEALERS. THEY DO IT TO EVERYONE THEY CAN!

The Coke rep is wrong. Since you bought them from a retailer you own them and can re-sell if you want. There may be tax or deposit liabilities but that is between you and your government.

No the information the Coke rep gave you is wrong. If you own the machine outright you may place whatever you care to place in the machine short of alcohol. You do not need to change any graphics on the machine no more than if you have a coke sign on a door of a c-store that is from Coke and says "push" and customers buy Pepsi.
On the other hand, If you were to have a coke truck deliver to you from say north dakota then yes that would be illegal, TO THE BOTTLER DELIVERING OUTSIDE HIS AREA, not to you in any way shape or form. This is called transshipping, the coke bottler would be in a heap o' trouble from Coca-Cola hq. They would have to pay fines to the local bottler, I do not know how much it is in SD but in OK it is around $10 a case.

Funny that I had a similiar conversation with a friend this past weekend. I was over at a coworker's home and he had an old '70s coin operated slider Coke cooler. I asked about it. He said in the 70's, his dad had a TV repair shop. He wanted a Coke machine. Back then, you leased the machine, then eventually bought it. Well, the local Coke bottler sold the cokes to him at a higher price than he could get them at the local wholesale grocer. He complained to Coke. They said, sorry. So, he paid off the machine and started buying the cokes himself. The coke guy was pissed but there was nothing he could do since the machine was now his.

The Saint brings up the most important question. What is the real staus of your machine. Do you actually have full title to said machine? If so screw the local bottler and do what you please. If it is a lease that Coke provides you then you must adhere to the contract and purchase drinks from the bottler or they wil have the right to take the machine back any any given time.

I think we went through this issue with TAN MAN last month.

I believe we all are on the same page.

I think that maybe Coke reps act in that way because they take charge of the vending machines, they supply it, they fix it if something's going wrong in the machine, and the vending machine is property of the Coke bottler of your town, like the coolers also.

My recommendation is... (although is a very expensive recommendation), if you want to buy sodas from Sam's Club, buy a soda vending machine that doesn't belong to Coke or Pepsi, so you can supply your machine without restrictions with Coke, Sprite, Pepsi or any other brands that you want to offer to your clients.

[ 03-07-2006, 12:47 PM: Message edited by: Ramón Coca-Colero ]

Ramon in the first sentance of the thread it states they own the machine. If they own it outright it doesn't matter where the machine originally came from or what graphics are on machine. They can put whatever they please in the machine and purchase said products from where ever. If it is a lease/ loan then yes the Coke rep is right, as you say here and as I preached on the {shutters in disgust} Tanman thread a while back.