Dublin down on Dr Pepper | Loren Steffy | a Chron.com blog

Dr. Pepper Sues Dr. Pepper Bottler Over Cane Sugar "Dublin Dr. Pepper" - The Consumerist

Boycott Dr.Pepper | Facebook

I Support Dublin Dr. Pepper - Wall | Facebook

Anyone here want to boycott Dr Pepper like some others plan on doing?

Nah, I'll keep on drinking my Dr. Pepper.

Dr Pepper Bottling of West Jefferson, NC also bottles Dr Pepper with cane sugar and sells it outside of its distribution area. Will DPSG sue them as well?

I think this is a foolish move on the part of DPSG. They're just going to tick off a portion of their customers.

If Coca-Cola can allow it's franchises to sell Mexican Coke then Dr Pepper should allow it's franchises to import Dublin Dr Pepper from the Dublin bottler. I do agree Dublin Dr Pepper should stay in its own territory.

Here's what I say. Let the local bottlers/distributors buy it from Dublin and sell it to their customers. People will be willing to pay the premium price. This is what WJDP is doing.

Nostalgia/retro is HUGE right now. DPS would be foolish to cut Dublin off at the knees and refuse to let them use the retro logo and bottles.

This is a heartbreaking story for us PCS fans out there.

On a related but unrelated note, I noticed that the Sundrop bottlers who used to sell over the internet, like the ones in Tullahoma TN and Pulaski TN, no longer do. A real shame for us who want cherry lemon, caffeine free, or caffeine free diet, since all the new distribution areas just carry regular and diet.

I was going to say to check out Sun Drop's official online sales site, but looks like with the national rollout, they pulled the plug on that: BuySunDrop.com

That was a shortlived experiment.

No, that was Choice USA of Gastonia NC's site. Forgot about that one.

Personally I think the way soda distribution is done is dumb - it's a hold over from another time and needs to be modernized. It causes the availability of flavors to not necessarily depend on customer demand, but on who has bottling rights and issues with competing flavors from two different companies not being able to be produced by the same bottler.

On topic:
It appears that part of the problem is Dublin Dr Pepper modifying the logo to include their name, which is a legitimate concern, as they are modifying a trademark.

A contract is a contract. There are plenty of other businesses that have protected sales territories. What sense would it make to have two or more companies selling/distributing the same exact product competing against each other in the same accounts and geographical area?

Let's say you own the franchise rights to a certain territory for McDonald's, Subway, what have you, and someone decides to build a McDonald's right next to yours.

Specific territorial boundaries and exclusivity within those boundaries has been a basis of the franchise model. I don't see it going anywhere anytime soon.

Nobody's forcing you to purchase only from the stores in your area. You have the freedom to jump in a car, on a bus, a train, etc and go to a place that sells the product you're looking for. Or you can hit up ebay, or one of the small reseller sites on the Internet, like Sodafinder or Soda Emporium.

With the consolidation of the bottling networks by the big three, their product offerings are becoming very homogenous. There are niche products here and there, but all in all, they want things to be very standardized. I recently took a trip to Rhode Island, and it was pretty cool to go into another Coke bottler's territory (Coca Cola of Southeastern New England), and see different things, like 24/30pk cubes, Moxie, Canada Dry Cranberry in DPS bottles (and 12pk cans) year round, and so on. Also, Polar Beverages, who is a DPS distributor, along with a very, very deep lineup of their own, carrying a lot of neat flavors, and seeing the Legacy 20oz DPS bottle for the first time. I'm sure that DPS will push all the bottlers to switch to them eventually, but there are none available around here from Honickman Canada Dry, and nobody I've spoken to from them knows anything about them.

That being said, I do feel lucky to be in an area where there are a few different choices from each of the big three - Davis and Honickman for DPS, ABARTA Coke and CCR from Coca-Cola (can't cound Philadelphia Coke anymore, they're now a part of CCR), and PBC and PBV from Pepsi-Cola.

Unfortunately, there isn't much in the way of 4th tier distribution, Red Bull took over all their distribution around here, and the previous company went bankrupt (Victory Beverage, they carried a lot of neat waters and sodas), and Beverage Network of Maryland has a very limited product line, and keeps losing stuff to others (Skinny Water, for example).

The Coke Freestyle machine is filling some of the demand for unique and different drinks, though availability is still spotty. Firehouse Subs just committed to putting them in every restaurant, although there are none of them even close to me (though one will be opening north of here in the near future). Most of the new Wegmans should have them as well. My only hope is that they are taking the large amount of data collected from the machines on a daily basis, and eventually offering some of those brands in bottle/can format. I'd LOVE to see a MezzoMix/Orange Coke. And more Fanta flavors.

Originally Posted by fusion

A contract is a contract. There are plenty of other businesses that have protected sales territories. What sense would it make to have two or more companies selling/distributing the same exact product competing against each other in the same accounts and geographical area?

The flaw with this model is that some products get excluded from given markets. In the area where I live, for example, CCBCC supplies stores with Pibb Xtra and Mello Yello, but has chosen not to supply Pibb Zero and is discontinuing Mello Yello Zero. This decision reduces both competition and the number of available customer choices in the market.

If a company has the rights to a product and opts to not sell that product, then another company ought to be allowed to bring that product to the market.