I’m helping to organize a church picnic for appx. 1,500 people who are expected to attend, and I’m in charge of the non-alcoholic drinks (soda/water). However, I don’t have the slightest idea how many of each product to purchase (or even whether to buy Pepsi/Coca-Cola/RC). So I figured that finding a breakdown of soda sales would help me, something like
However strong my will, my google-fu is weak. Does anybody here know where I can find this sort of info? Broken down by company would be best, but I could probably get by with overall US percentages of all drinks.
For this many people (where do you fit 1500 people for a picnic, anyway?) you might want to give some thought to calling the local Coke and/or Pepsi distributors and seeing if you can finagle a fountain setup or two (or more!) for the day.
Otherwise, you’re looking at easily 3000-4000 cans or bottles, and probably more, depending on how warm the day will be. That’s a whole lot of recycling to collect and redeem, or a lot of CRV to throw away, at the rate of 3-5 cents a can.
I’d keep it simple - Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite, root beer and orange soda. If you’re “stuck” with 4-tap fountains, ditch the orange. Better yet, ask the distributor what the most popular non-cola flavors are in the area and get those. Don’t over-complicate your life by wanting to cater to every possible person’s preferences - this is a picnic, not a grocery store.
I can get you statistics that show the relative size of Coca-Cola Company vs. Pepsico, I can even find you statistics that show Coca-Cola Classic vs. Pepsi, but after that, you’ll have to buy sophisticated market share reports.
and to tell you that Coca-Cola Classic has about a 17% share, with Pepsi at about 11%. How you divide up Diet Coke, Mountain Dew, Fanta and the rest is up to you.
That information is considered very confidential by both companies. There are other, independent survey companies that might sell you this info; be prepared to pay several thousand dollars for it.
But you don’t actually need that detailed info for your task. Also, at events like this, people are adaptable. If you don’t have Pepsi, most people will take Coke instead. And vice versa. So buy whichever is cheaper. And the way to do that is like gotpasswords said; contact the local suppliers and arrange to rent a fountain system.
I wouldn’t go overboard trying to get everyones favorite- just get four or five of the basics and if someone preference isn’t there, trust me, they’ll drink something else.
You also need to remember that sales don’t necessary reflect what you should get. At a picnic, bottled water – already popular – might soar to the number one position.
If one sits down to eat a meal, they might be more likely to choose a favorite beverage, but if one is out for hours doing various things and having multiple drinks, their habits will vary greatly from what they are likely to order at McDonalds or grab out of a machine at work during break.
Since I’m going into this cold, my thing is I just want to make sure I have enough Coke/Diet/Sprite etc so that we won’t run out w/o having a bunch of product left over. I figured that buying them in the relative percentages of their overall sales would at least give me some logical basis of ordering them.
And call me crazy, but I seem to recall that this info was trumpted back in the day (80s-90s), with newspaper articles proclaiming that “Pepsi is the new #1” or some such, with breakdowns of the top 10 sodas.
And I will look into fountain drinks. Thanks for the heads-up gotpasswords!
Note that over half of all soft drink sales now are sugar-free drinks. Since many fountains usually have only 1 sugar-free selection (and almost always a caffeinated one at that), the percentage would probably be higher. Please make sure you have at least 1 sugar-free, caffeine-free option.