In our modern era, where a lot of big-city markets have been repurchased by Coca-Cola and Pepsi corporate, we imagine decisions being made in an Atlanta conference room and implemented nationwide. The important rôle once played by local bottlers has been forgotten or overlooked. Antitrust law was not yet a historical footnote in the 20th century, so the bottlers had a great deal of autonomy. As a result, there was huge variation from territory to territory in what brands were distributed by which bottlers.
The Grape Soda market has always been pretty small compared to other soda types.
As I mentioned earlier there’s a lot of really good regional Grape Sodas. They could easily be bought out, but I don’t think they sell enough to attract the attention of Coke or Pepsi.
Orange Soda is the same. Orange Crush has held the market for my lifetime. The Fanta Orange Soda isn’t even close in taste. I’m not sure, didn’t some big corporation buy out Crush? I think it’s been bought & sold several times. I know Orange Crush doesn’t taste much like I remember as a kid.
I’m just thrilled that Faygo makes diet grape soda.
See post #13.
There are probably more black people that drink Stoney rather than grape soda, so the more pertinent question is, as long as Coca Cola sells Stoney, why the heck won’t they sell it in the United States? (It’s about the only thing in the world that I’d choose over Vernor’s.)
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I’ve never seen the diet variety. I guess it makes sense, though. Faygo, I would guess, sells their non-cola varieties more than their cola.
The Regal Entertainment Group purchased Chicago’s City North 14 multiplex and are in the process of renovating it. One of their moves has been to install customer operated soda dispensing systems. These have a touch screen. If you select “Coca-Cola”, you are offered a number of flavor variations - cherry, vanilla, lime, etc. It’s obvious that they are mixing the Coke syrup, carbonated water and an additional flavor syrup at the dispenser. The system claims to offer over 100 variations. And, of course, means eliminating the job of the person who dispensed the drinks. The cashier just give the customer a cup.
They are called “Coke Freestyle” machines, and I despise them. They are in some local restaurants and the movie theatres here as well.
I can believe that they do have 100 options. There is just about every coke, fanta, tea, root-beer, and lemonade product I can think of (and I’m certain some I can’t), with options for just about every flavor variation. That part is interesting, I admit, but none of the products taste quite right, because they’re all coming out the same tube and the remnants of syrup get mixed up.
They’re also badly designed because they’re replacing long horizontal banks of drink and ice dispensers with one single-person kiosk, where there are way too many choices, but only one person can use any of them at one time (imagine a 6 year old at one of these, and think how long you’re going to be waiting).
The final straw is that there is a water and ice dispenser included in the machine, so the restaurants have taken out their water-dispenser that was off to the side, so even if all you want is ice or water, you still have to wait for all the people to get done mixing their seven-layer 30-choice concoctions before it’s your turn.