A License to Chill in the Soft Drink Industry

Ever wonder about the words on the back of a Dr Pepper, 7UP or other DPS soft drink? The line that reads something like, “Bottled by ABC Co. under the authority of the Dr Pepper Co.”?

It's not just legalese. These words can often tell you who bottled the drink and who owns the trademark, and they give you a peek at how the soft drink industry developed.

Many soft drinks started in drug stores – including Dr Pepper, which was born at Morrison’s Old Corner Drug Store in Waco, Texas, in 1885. As these small businesses grew, no single soda jerk could sling enough fizzy drinks to quench all of their customers’ thirsts, so they made deals with other companies to bottle and sell it for them.

Dr Pepper Snapple Group company Dr Pepper/Seven Up, Inc. is the owner of dozens of soft drink brands. It manufactures the syrup (a.k.a., “concentrate”) for these soft drink brands and ships it off to bottlers, who add water and sweetener, put it in a bottle and sell it to retailers in their region. In some cases, the bottler in a territory is a DPS-owned company and, in other cases, an independent company.

Collectively, we work with hundreds of bottlers and distributors, ranging from small family-owned businesses serving a few counties, to larger corporations covering broader regions, whose continued passion for our brands fuels our success.

So while it may look as if the ABC Co. owns a brand, the actual owners are the ones who sell it to them.