Something like this has been going on in the restaurant world since seemingly forever

Are you referring to the fact that 7up/Dr pepper are distributed by pepsico? They still have historically been independent from the big 2 as far as product branding since inception, most recently being owned by Schweppes.

> Again, native me thought, "Why not have both Coke and Pepsi and let the customer decide?" I am not sure whether there was a pricing issue that prevented management from buying both—like the loss of a discount for going Coke-only or whatever. There's a bunch of pricing stuff (typically the bottler sells syrup and rents dispensers and may supply drinkware, and you get discounts on everything when you buy more syrup, and you get advertising subsidies when you put the brand logo in your ad, etc), but there's also logistics. More options means a bigger soda fountain and probably more space storing syrup. I'm not sure I've ever seen mixed brands in a single dispenser (other than 7up+DrPepper which is bottled regionally by Coke bottlers in some regions and Pepsi bottlers in others; so you might see Coke with 7up and DrPepper or with Sprite and MrPibb). But, rarely, I've seen dispensers from b…

The deals for this type of product positioning occur quite high up in the chain. To give an example Yum! brands (KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, etc) was formed as a subsidiary of PepsiCo. Although PepsiCo has divested from Yum, their pre-existing relationship is why these restaurants only serve Pepsi's soft drinks. Deal-making is also why you see patterns like this emerge in other places such as convenience stores that only sell beverages from the Coca-cola company (i.e. higher volume sales from just one supplier yields a better discount than splitting sales across multiple suppliers). It's relatively rarer to see more than one beverage supplier at a restaurant, club or convenience outlet.

Ha, the University where I work signed an exclusive agreement to only sell Pepsi products on campus. I'm sure there was some kickback money given to people here to push it through.

This is world wide. Coke and Pepsi not only provide restaurants with soft drinks, but also all other drinks, most importantly beer. Local beverage distributors will be with either one or the other. Restaurant owners will sign a contract with a distributor to buy only from them, and in exchange get discounts, free equipment rentals such as drink fridges and beer taps, and things like sunshades, tables and chairs, signage, etc.

There's a complicated UK beer version of this with more parties. Basically pubs might be any of: - directly owned and managed by the brewery - owned by the brewery and leased to a manager, like a franchise - independent, but contracted exclusively - genuinely independent Contracted pubs may also have limited supplies of "guest ales". Usually there's sufficient local competition to keep the pubs good, but local monocultures can also be a problem.

Yea, when I worked at Dominos we were charging like $2.50 for a 20 oz coke and $3.50 for a 2 liter. Since the same 2 liter was like $1 at the grocery store, I thought we were gouging costumers and making bank on them, and figured the manager was being dramatic whenever inventory counts were off by a few. Turned out we had a really raw deal with Coke, and were only charging like 25-50¢ more than we bought from for. And we were also required to order them from the distributor, to prevent us from stocking the cooler with cheaper ones from the grocery store.