with last month's purchase of a stake in Honest Tea, have the CC bottlers started to handle some distribution of the product? If not, when is that supposed to take place? I'm very curious as to how they will integrate Honest Tea into their distribution.

On a side note, how has Fuze done in the CC distribution system? In Canada, CCE has not started doing the distribution yet, but in my stores I've already gotten them in the CC coolers and they're doing exceptionally well. Does anybody have any feedback on how Fuze is doing?

does well here....does excellent when on sale (10/$10)

From what I've read, they're going to give Honest Tea a lot of independence to continue developing their grassroots tea-of-the-people feel. I know with similar buy-outs of all-natural, organic brands by bigger corporations, their goal is to make the transition appear unnoticeable. Otherwise their crunchy following will be up in arms.

We do very well with Fuze.

As for Honest, I think we will see existing distribution stay, but as contracts come up, we could see some shifting into the bottler system. Also, in areas where Honest is not currently sold, I could see Coke presenting it to the bottlers. Keep in mind that Coke and Nestle renegotiated their Nestea deal, so Coke is free to do whatever they basically want when it comes to tea products.

I think the main thing is that Honest has to stay in its' current packaging - if it is brought into the can/2L world, the brand will be cheapened and basically destroyed.

Agreed. And they better not lose the quotes under the bottle cap.

It was recently announced that CCE will begin distributing PET bottles of Honest Tea and Ade in the parts of the Western US this fall.

Honest Tea to get wider distribution through Coke: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance