I wonder how this bodes for areas where PBG and PAS sell non-Pepsi brands. Obviously, Pepsi would want their bottling arm to sell and promote their own products, firstly, but you have to look at the strength of allied brands like Crush, Sunkist and Dr Pepper. Pepsi never could crack any attempt to compete with the Dr, and their last viable fruit flavor line was Slice.

Will these brands (and others I obviously don't know of) stay in the COBO (I guess we can call it that again, right?) system, or be dropped? Will Pepsi execs realize the true value of distributing these strong brands? Would Pepsi make a move to try and buy Crush from DPS?

As you may or may not know, Coca-Cola now owns Philadelphia Coca-Cola. I don't know how much this has changed their front office and day-to-day operations, but I can tell you that they still sell Dr Pepper. Overall, I believe it is around 8-10% of their total volume.

If DPSG were to sell Crush to Pepsi, I'd imagine that regaining distribution rights to Dr Pepper (in areas where Pepsi distributes it) would be a part of the deal.

I could see something like this happening. DPSG already has a strong flavor line with Sunkist and Nehi.

very interesting point... I'm pretty sure that mtn dew livewire couldn't even compete with the amount of sunkist that we sell day to day... up here in the boonies, we don't carry dr. pepper and you can definitely see the difference in the numbers... the plant to the south of us does and it does great for them, now if we could only get the rights to distribute it up north, i think that would be huge.

What about Rockstar??? I wonder if we would keep that or will they be looking for a new home again in the near future???

Rockstar stays. That was a deal that PepsiCo signed with Rockstar.

Pepsico needs to think like a bottler, not a concentrate company, now more than ever. Remember, they are publicly traded just like PAS and PBG were so they owe it to the shareholders to sell what sells (where they can) to meet Wall Street expectaions. It would make good sense for them to buy Crush, but I don't think it would make a lick of sense for DPS. Why sell that cash cow? Same for Pepper.

The real question is how DPS goes to bat with this whole thing. I don't know the legal agreements between the now larger PepsiCo and DPS but I bet a cold soda it will get interesting.

I guess I didn't know that... what I understood was that it was only PAS and PBG that gained to rights to distribute it... I didn't think that Pepsico had anything to do with that... then again, I'm just a little route guy, the head honchos at the plant won't tell us a damn thing

No, the other Pepsi bottlers could pick it up, if they chose... unless there was a previous contract in place.

Where I live, Coke has had Monster for years, and Canada Dry has had Rockstar. Over in Maryland where I work, Canada Dry had both. We got Rockstar from them when Coke signed the big contract going back a few years, and then we got Monster from them when Coke signed that deal. Now they just have Venom in Maryland, but I believe over here, they still have Rockstar. And over in Maryland, we compete against an indie Pepsi distributor, who chose not to pick up Rockstar, so we kept it, but dropped the slower flavors and packages. Trouble is, in most of the grocery chains, the authorizations automatically switched over to Pepsi, and it got deleted out from under our vendor number in the stores. So, those stores don't carry it anymore. Walmart even said they won't change it back.

Rumor on the street from some people is that Canada Dry will pick it up in our area eventually.

Hearing figures of about 6,000 jobs being cut..as low as 4000. Should be interesting to see what the forthcoming years bring..I hope to see more co-op between pepsico brands in the near future. So with all that financial mumbo jumbo which of you pepsi guys(or PBG or PAS should I say) are taking the cash as opposed to the stock? heh not sure how I am gonna go about that just yet.. now I wonder if KO will consider the same thing for its bottlers CCE and CCBCC? Those are the top two coke bottlers if I am not mistaken?

Is there anyone that works for Pepsico out there that wouldn't mind sharing some info about their route drivers??? Benefits?? Pay?? anything else?? If you don't want to post it on here, send me a private message... I work for PAS currently and want to see if there will be any changes coming our way if any??? Thank You

We lost everyone that joined us in the last round of hiring. Merchs and delivery drivers, but I can't understand the logic. The new merch was hired to hold down overtime hours for the others. So by laying him off, the other merchs are going to have to work more OT to cover that position, bringing payroll up. Not to mention the route changes that will have to be made to cover the driver. Does this make since to anyone else?