In my territory there is Pepsi America and they still carry Sunkist, Hawaiian Punch, and Squirt. I read that Livewire was only around for the summer so that it didn't die off like Pepsi Blue, but we all now that Pepsi Blue was dead in the beginning. Now a Pepsi salesman told me that they can only carry livewire for the summer so they don't have to drop Sunkist. Is this true? I've also been told that Livewire is doing pretty well. My thoughts are that when Livewire is done for the summer they'll look at the numbers and decide if they should drop Sunkist for year round distrubation of Livewire. They also have a new 20oz. Lipton Fruit teazer that they could replace Hawaiian Punch with maybe, but they don't carry that one in 12 packs, is that so they don't have to drop Hawaiian Punch. You'd think Lipton would push Pepsi into carrying that in 12 packs. If all this is true maybe they would just drop Squirt all together, Pepsi has droped some of the flavors of Squirt a while ago. We're told that we should have these flavors in maybe less than 2 years. just wondering what the word is nation wide?

First, I think that Pepsi and Coke would be happy if their bottlers would drop anything that wasn't produced by them. I don't see that happening in a lot of cases, since these indies probably feel they have a lot more to lose by dropping brands.

Especially Sunkist. I wouldn't expect Slice's numbers to even come close, and Livewire is not really like Sunkist, in my opinion.

HP has been dropped from a lot of fountains and replaced with Fruitworks, which in turn is probably going to be replaced with a Tropicana branded fruit punch. Don't be suprised if Pepsi starts producing that in 2 liters and multipacks, to compete with Coke's Minute Maid Fruit Punch. At that point I could see HP being dropped.

I'm not sure why DPSU didn't raise a stink about Pepsi bottlers carrying both LW and Sunkist.

And as far as Lipton pushing Pepsi to do anything, I think that the Lipton thing is a joint venture between Pepsi and Unilever, like Nestea is between Nestle and Coke.

Independent bottlers live for carrying the other third tier products. Of course, carrying these products is how to basically take 3rd tier out of play in their respective regions. Herbco did it to ABC in Westcentral PA. When CCE bought them out, they made a lot of mistakes in dropping Sunkist, Squirt, and Welch's. Pepsi then gave up 7Up, and now ABC got tons of market share from the big boys pumping the products out, getting people hooked on them in those areas, and now the sales are going to ABC. Coke may fall to 3rd in some of those places, they never could top Pepsi.

I definetely do not see LiveWire replacing Sunkist in any area. I think this was just an experiment Pepsi tried...or it's possible that we'll keep seeing different MD variations each summer. In any case, as far as I'm concerned LiveWire is kind of a slick way for Pepsi to have another successful new product without actually doing anything new: LiveWire is basically just a generic orange soda, with caffeine added. After the success of Code Red (now THAT was innovative), they figured that by slapping the MD label on anything, they'll get sales. It's a shame really.

By the way, Pepsi bottles all of the DPSU products sold in the NYC area except Dr. Pepper (bottled by Coca-Cola) and RC/Diet Rite (bottled by Cro-Pac).

Originally posted by DewDoer:

By the way, Pepsi bottles all of the DPSU products sold in the NYC area except Dr. Pepper (bottled by Coca-Cola) and RC/Diet Rite (bottled by Cro-Pac).

And 7up, which I think CroPac may have as well, now. (Isn't there some 3rd tier guy in New Jersey who sells stuff in NYC?)

I haven't lived in norther New Jersey in a while, but here's what I remember:

Canada Dry is owned by Honickman. Most of it was produced in Elizabeth, which was formerly Concord Beverages... now owned by Cott. Not sure if they still produce for C-D, though. They had 7-Up and a lot of the other DPSU products. coke has DP.. and is CCE-NY.

There was a small 3rd tier that sold Arizona and RC/Diet Rite -- they went bankrupt. I think Arizona went to C-D and RC/Diet Rite was distributed by some small indie company that had only a few trucks.

Since Briar's is produced in the area, they also ran their own trucks.

Snapple was very, very strong in this area. Two big Snapple distributors in that area. Also had Stewart's and Vermont Pure.

northwestern NJ was Davis for C-D products.

Pepsi is PBG.

In NYC, Pepsi is Honickman, and he also owns the C-D franchise.

Originally posted by fusion:
I haven't lived in norther New Jersey in a while, but here's what I remember:

Canada Dry is owned by Honickman. Most of it was produced in Elizabeth, which was formerly Concord Beverages... now owned by Cott. Not sure if they still produce for C-D, though. They had 7-Up and a lot of the other DPSU products. coke has DP.. and is CCE-NY.

There was a small 3rd tier that sold Arizona and RC/Diet Rite -- they went bankrupt. I think Arizona went to C-D and RC/Diet Rite was distributed by some small indie company that had only a few trucks.

Since Briar's is produced in the area, they also ran their own trucks.

Snapple was very, very strong in this area. Two big Snapple distributors in that area. Also had Stewart's and Vermont Pure.

northwestern NJ was Davis for C-D products.

Pepsi is PBG.

In NYC, Pepsi is Honickman, and he also owns the C-D franchise.

Honickman did drop 7up for Sierra Mist, IIRC. I'm not 100% sure who picked it up there.

I do know Snapple is now a DPSU controlled distributor in the NYC area and I believe that extends all the way to Albany. Brian?

I just got done reading the flavors flash. it's a newsletter that dpsubg sends out every 2-3 months and they had a article about sunkist and pepsi's effort to come back with it's own orange soda livewire to compete against livewire.

when i was in canada they had this orange soda called 'C'PLUS (made by coca-cola).in canada there mello yello taste different