I was reading an article from the May 26 issue of Beverage Digest that CCE has a letter of intent to purchase Central Coke. What will this mean for MAC? Will MAC close down if they only have one customer Kokomo Coke? Kokomo Coke sometimes buys from Huntsville(Big Springs)Coca-Cola when MAC product is not available.

[ 05-30-2005, 12:15 AM: Message edited by: bigrich ]

That's the one thing I wonder about, too, bigrich. Central/the Christian family have the majority stake in MAC -- so maybe CCE will just have Kokomo buy from Indianapolis, Portland and the various Illinois facilities? Or maybe Kokomo will just buy from Huntsville.. or maybe even Great Plains CC in Oklahoma.

I really think CCE should keep MAC open, since they have no bottle or can production facilities in Pennsylvania at all. When they bought out Herbco, they shut down the bottle line in Pittston PA. I'm not sure if Ebensburg PA was closed before or after the merger, though.

They need to keep it open to take the pressure off of Twinsburg, Baltimore and the NY divison production that supplies northeastern PA. I'd even suggest putting a bottle line in as well. But that's just me.

The only production CCE has in PA is Dasani in Washington.

Northern Neck Coca-Cola in VA also is part of MAC, though they buy a lot of stuff from CCE Richmond/Alexandria, in the way of 2 liters, 20oz and 24oz 6 pks.

The small Pottsville PA franchise also buys cans from MAC.

[ 05-30-2005, 05:02 PM: Message edited by: fusion ]

there's an indie in pottsville?

where was central coke located?

Yeah, Pottsville is a teeny tiny franchise. Maybe covers 1 or 2 counties. I'm not sure -- it's been years since I've been up that way. I don't know if they produce their own 2 liters, or buy from someone else.

Central Coke covers western Maryland, northwestern Virginia, the eastern panhandle of WV, south central PA, plus smaller territories around Williamsport PA and Lima OH.

Bottle production is located in Hagerstown MD (HG). They buy 16.9oz 6pks from CCBCC and CCE. Can production is Mid-Atlantic Canners, located in Hamburg PA, smack dab in the middle of CCE teritory (former Herbco territory). Their sister plant in Zanesville OH (ZN) was closed because the old Herbco territories didn't buy cans from MAC after the CCE buyout. The other plant in Northampton MA (NP) was sold off long time ago, and now produces Powerade, Nestea, and MM juices-to-go.

Hopefully I've remembered all of them, but these are the sales centers, from what I recall:

Williamsport PA
Lima OH
Hagerstown MD
Cumberland MD
York PA
Winchester VA
Staunton VA
Charlottesville VA

Headquarters is in Richmond VA, though Richmond is CCE territory. Their offices are literally right down the street from the CCE offices (formerly these offices held the Commonwealth Division HQ, but when it was merged with the Capitol division to form the Mid-Atlantic division, the offices became just a sales center).

The Christian family owns the business, headed by Betty Christian.

I really don't know the full history of all of the operations. I think that some of it was formerly part of the Crass Coca-Cola operations, which had their offices in Richmond, at the site that CCE now has their offices, 1310 Roseneath Rd. Central is at 1706 Roseneath Rd.

Crass was sold to Mid-Atlantic Coca-Cola, pre CCE days. Parts of CCE/Mid-Atlantic were owned by Miami Coca-Cola (including the office I work out of in eastern MD). And the Wilmington DE branch of Miami Coke was sold to Philadelphia Coke.

From what I've dug up, Richmond VA, Capitol Heights MD, Alexandria VA, Frederick MD, and Culpeper VA were Crass operations. So.. maybe Mid-Atlantic CC was actually created as the merger of the Crass and Miami operations? I'll have to ask my branch manager, he used to work for Miami. CCE was formed in 1986, and Mid-Atlantic was acquired in 1988.

The York PA facility is one of the older-style Coke facilities, so I think it is safe to say they bottled there. Staunton also bottled, under code SV.

Central was (is) headquarted in Richmond VA, although they don't have territory there (CCE does). The headquarters is right down the street (Roseneath Rd) from CCE's plant. The headquarters is a tiny little building. They have territory is parts of VA, PA, MY, WV, and Lima Ohio. In Staunton we've known this day was bound to come. For many years LT and Betty Christian's son's have said that they had no desire to take over the company. When Mrs. Christian officially retired last year we only knew it was a matter of time. This week has been crazy, we've had a cleaning crew detailing the sales center; they even waxed the floor in the warehouse.


Interestingly enough...in 1982, the current president of the company, Lee Christian, was vice president, and his dad LT was president. Unfortunately, his dad had a penchant for exhibitionism, among other problems, and he and Mrs Christian divorced. Unfortunately, Mr. Christian and Lee had a lot of the company money tied up in offshore bank accounts and so on, and when Mrs. Christian found out about this, she fired them both. She only rehired Lee about 10 years ago. Mrs. Christian is now in her 80's, still living in Richmond, and she is said to have many health problems. LT Christian is now bedridden.

That's funny.. while I was typing my insanely long post, you snuck yours in. [img]smile.gif[/img]

haha, I was working on mine for a while too...

You're missing one sales center, but I can't think of which one it is. I'll check tomorrow. I have a history of Central Coke they gave me when I was hired. I'll post it on here tomorrow if I can find it.

[ 06-01-2005, 09:18 PM: Message edited by: golee1 ]

Cumberland had production as well until the 1990's I think. They also had a Coke sales center in Romney, WV now used as a Coke museum, but it hasn't been open for a decade at least.

I don't know the former Cumberland code though.

Fairmont WV is the 9th. There was a sales center in Harrisonburg VA that was consolidated into Staunton in 1990. There was also one in Oakland MD.

[ 06-02-2005, 04:32 PM: Message edited by: golee1 ]