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| Issue #40 (Spring 2006) is available now! Buy a 1-year subscription, or BUY A SINGLE COPY HERE.
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Winter/Spring 2005 Soda Spectrum Series Magazine AVAILABLE NOW!:
Our Winter/Spring 2005 edition of The Soda Spectrum - Coke bottle edition is AVAILABLE NOW! This special edition magazine is available as a single-copy purchase only...
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Commemorative Soda Can Magazine ON SALE NOW!:
We've got a brand new special edition magazine now available - dedicated to soda can collectors! Great articles about commemorative cans, columns about soda can collectors, tons of photos, and much more! Purchase this special edition magazine by clicking on the link below.
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What People Are Saying About Soda Pop Dreams Magazine:
"What a great magazine! I enjoyed it cover to cover! My wife is especially into soda collectables and didn't put it down until she
had read it all."
- Dale Purvis, Burleson, TX
"I can not be without your great publication, as I receive several and yours is Number 1!"
- Harold Banter, Hudson, FL
"My renewal is in the mail - I couldn't live without this magazine. Each issue is put together very well with something for everyone. A magazine all about soda pop. Who could ask for more? I will always want a subscription to this magazine."
- Ray McAuley, British Columbia, Canada
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No More Bottles, Baby...
By Bill Wundram
The firm grip on a chilled bottle of Pepsi was assurance that you would thirst no more, a long swig of goodness and hope that all was well in your life. "Pepsi-Cola hits the spot, 12 full ounces, that's a lot ..." But alas, Pepsi in its glass bottle is going, going, gone from the Quad-Cities, to be replaced by the uninspiring pop-top can. It is the loss of an old bottled friend that has been around here for 66 years.
Simply, the 'Pepsi Generation' is now in a can. The last batch of bottled Pepsi products (Mountain Dew) rolled off the line one morning last week at Pepsi-Cola Bottling Co. of Davenport, leaving the bottling line on Schmidt Road a sentimental end to cool drinks from a tall-necked bottle. Earlier in the day, the last Diet Pepsis were bottled and capped. When the current stocks are gone, there will be no more Pepsi-Cola or its Column Wrap allied products in bottles within reach of the Quad-Cities. The last two U.S. Pepsi bottling plants are in Lewiston, Idaho, and Memphis, MO.
"It became a matter of economics and a change in lifestyle. The bottle was out in this age that wanted the feel of a can in their hand," says Greg Ashby, sales manager at the Davenport bottling plant. "Good example: A bottle is unwieldy in a car where an America on wheels likes the handy feel of a can."
"We're sad to see it go - Pepsi in a bottle was like baseball, mom and apple pie," says Ashby. "But the bottle had to go. Glass became prohibitive in cost and out of style. We knew the end was coming, so a few years ago we bought five semi loads of Pepsi bottles in Mexico to hold us over. Bottles were costing us 40 cents each - unbelievable. They had to be carefully washed and washed and recycled for use 10 times before we could recoup our cost per bottle."
At one time, in the hey-day of the bottle, the Davenport Pepsi bottle line was turning out 6,000 cases a day, of 24 bottles a case, sometimes working two shifts. Now, in the case of the can, the distribution is about twice that number.
"Without question, times change. For soft drinks, it's a world in a can," says Amy Helpenstell, president of A.D. Huesing, the Rock Island company that introduced a lagging, unknown product called Pepsi-Cola to the Quad-Cities in 1935. Now, there are two separate Pepsi companies in the Quad-Cities. Pepsi-Cola of Davenport, which was glass bottling until last week, and A.D. Huesing, Rock Island, which gave up on glass bottles six years ago. Each is independent of the other; both now serve as distributors for wide markets in Iowa and Illinois, selling Pepsi and its soft drink "relatives" - waters, juices and ice tea, which neither business ever produced in cans.
"When we quit bottling in 1975, our bottle equipment was dismantled and sold to a company in Vietnam. They may be using our old equipment to bottle beer," says Helpenstell.
The Quad-Cities has been one of America's most loyal markets to Pepsi, with its two independent divisions outselling and out-marketing Coca-Cola. Pepsi products have from 62 to 70 percent of the Quad-City market penetration, national statistics show, making it one of the top five markets in the nation in per capita consumption and sales.
Ashby says, "Bottled Pepsi has had only 2 or 3 percent of the market share, compared to the overwhelming requests for cans. Twenty years ago, bottles were 90 percent of the share."
Many factors were involved in the demise of bottled pop. Breakage and dangers of broken glass were always a worry. Too, cans cool quicker than glass, and slip into the beverage slot of a car's front seat console. Also, in the competitive world of supermarket merchandising, bottles are difficult to display and stack.
In the lingo of marketing, aisle end-cap displays are hot spots to sell items. It is far more practical to tall-stack cases of 24 cans than cases of 24 teetery bottles, which could crash to the floor after a hard bump from a shopping cart.
"I've been with Pepsi for 25 years and have an attachment to the bottle," Ashby says. "I have quite a collection of Pepsi-Cola memorabilia, Pepsi bottles with paper labels and some very old green Pepsi bottles that may have at one time been used for beer. Coca-Cola still puts out a few Mae West commemorative bottles at Christmas time, but face it, the age of the pop bottle is forever gone."
This saddens the nine employees of the Davenport Pepsi bottling line, recognized as one of the longest-running in the nation. They will be without jobs. "I'm unhappy to see the bottles go. I've been here for 35 years," says Leranell Logsdon, Davenport, who inspected the last run of Mountain Dew bottles zipping before her on a back-lit production line. The bottling plant will likely be sold; Ashby says that its neighbor, Ralston Purina, is interested in the site.
Retail outlets will accept returnable Pepsi product bottles until a date in 2002. After that, they may be expected to become collector items, particularly those with the name "A.D. Huesing," Davenport or Rock Island, stamped in the bottom of the bottle.
As to what is going to be done with all those bottles being returned, they are shipped to Des Moines, one semi-load at a time. There, a glass company recycles them for use into other products.
The glass could be recycled into most anything, but ... 'Pepsi-Cola hits the spot.'
This story originally appeared in Issue #31 of Soda Pop Dreams Magazine and is reprinted by permission of the Quad-City Times, Davenport, Iowa.
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