Fridge Packs in the northeast

[fusion]

Mid-Atlantic canners (supplier of canned Coke products to indie Coke bottlers in the mid-atlantic, northeast and some of the mid-west) has switched it's Hamburg PA facility to Fridge Packs.

Also, CCE's northeast divisions - New England, New York, Eastern Great Lakes, and Mid-Atlantic will all be switching to Fridge Packs by the middle of July, from what we were told in a meeting on Tuesday.

I was in southwestern/central PA today, and Coke Central, who buys their cans from Mid-Atlantic Canners had all their accounts switched to Fridge Packs. They have a pretty deep selection, and I was even suprised to see Barq's Red Cream in Fridge Packs.

Nothing really out of the ordinary, though. I did see Sierra Mist is now in 12 pack 16.9oz, and Pepsi has switched the wraps of these 12 packs to a clear plastic, so you can at least see the bottles inside.

[drpep]

Just after I made a post elsewhere on here about Pepsi not having 16.9oz they show up as 12 packs in all the Wallys.

[SplitLevelP]

I can confirm 12pack 16.9 pepsi in Utica wal-mart.

[karks88]

Fusion, was Citra among those now using a fridgepack? I notice the batch of 12 packs around here expires on 3/10/03 and I'm hoping they will restock after that date.

[fusion]

No Citra. I haven't seen any MAC Citra for quite a while. The only "odd" flavors I saw were Tab and Red Cream. No Citra in York, either. York does Central PA, Hagerstown does the western part of Central's territory.

Coke Consolidated has territory out around West Virginia University, but I wasn't up to making the drive out that far. Maybe next time...

[ 03-06-2003, 10:28 AM: Message edited by: fusion ]

[fusion]

Oh, I thought of something else today. That mysterious pallet of 12 pack Citra we had in our warehouse had that 3/10 date on it as well. I guess that was the last of the Baltimore (BT) Citra.

[BottleBoss]

Those fridge packs have shown up here in maryland. They sell out pretty quick. Not because the product in them is any good though, just because the package is new. Incredible, but it works.

[bigrich]

I purchased some Coke products from a small independent bottler yesterday. All their cans were produced by MAC Hamburg line. They were all dated Nov 10, 03 and no product was in the fridge packs. Hopefully they will soon be around here too. Does any one know if MAC shut down their Zanesville, OH facility? Kokomo Coke used to get their product from Zanesville, but as of lately only Hamburg.

[fusion]

It appears that Zanesville has indeed closed down. After a quick search on Google, I saw that a potato chip company is moving into the building. Another site stated that 65 workers were laid off in mid-August.

When CCE purchased Chicago Coke/Herbco, they ended their contracts with MAC. I'm sure that was a good chunk of their business, and it didn't make sense to keep two facilities open. By the time it's all said and done, MAC may not even exist, if CCE buys out more of the indie bottlers.

CCE's territory is in the same town
(Hamburg, PA) that MAC is in, and the cans in the local stores come all the way up from CCE's Baltimore and Twinsburg facilities. CCE has a warehouse in nearby Reading.

[teamtitan512]

The first place I ever saw fridge packs was Mello Yello almost 2 years ago at the Super K-Mart in Morgantown, WV. What's interesting is the lack of offerings in that area, only Coke, Diet Coke, Cherry Coke, Vanilla Coke, Pibb Xtra (Mr. Pibb was big there for some reason), and Mello Yello. I never have seen Mello Yello Cherry anywhere in my life but in Morgantown.

Central territory is also in Cumberland (Allegany County), and Garrett County. I live in Cumberland, so I can assure you it is Central. Bedford County, PA is Central, you will find Herbco in Blair County, PA (Altoona), and anywhere west until the immediate Pittsburgh area.