A few months ago, I read that the Double Cola Company had picked up a number of new distributors (mostly beer distributors) to get their products into stores in more areas. In SE TN, their distributor is Carter Distributing Company:

http://www.carterdist.com/default.aspx

Knowing that I'd be going to the town of Tellico Plains in the near future, I contacted Double Cola and asked if Diet Double Cola and/or Diet Ski were availible in Tellico Plains. I was told that Diet Double Cola (but not Ski) was available there, and I was given the names of two stores that they "knew" to sell their products. When I visited those two stores, however, no Double Cola products were available, and the store managers claimed that they had never sold Double Cola.

Were the people at Double Cola lying to me, or is Carter Distributing Company lying to the Double Cola Company?

Who knows who's telling the truth. Me, I would have called Carter directly.

I did call Carter directly. I was told that they only distributed Double Cola products in Chattanooga, but the folks at DC insisted that that was wrong. They said that they needed to follow up with Carter and get back with me. It was in the follow up that I was told that the person I'd spoken with at Carter was misinformed. I was also given the names of two stores at that point.

I think that someone at Carter has been misleading the folks at DC. It wouldn't be a smart business move to direct a customer to a specific store if they knew that the store didn't really carry their products.

I was told that the reason DC switched distributors last year (to Carter) was to expand their market footprint to include more of SE TN. That doesn't seem to have happened.