Something new at McDonald's: Pepsi Products!

[Toliver]

Here's the article:

"Some McDonald’s now carry Pepsi drinks"

Dave DeCecco, a spokesman for Purchase, N.Y.-based PepsiCo Inc., confirmed that selected McDonald’s outlets are offering Gatorade, Propel Fitness Water, Lipton Iced Tea, Tropicana orange juice and Mountain Dew. The outlets won’t sell Pepsi or Diet Pepsi.

“It’s no longer ’Coke is it,”’ said Morningstar senior analyst Matthew Reilly. “There’s a heck of a lot of more choices there.”

....Non-carbonated beverages such as iced teas, flavored waters and coffee drinks are gaining ground, and Pepsi has a slight lead in that part of the market, he said.

Does the McDonald's near you sell more than sodas?

I'm happy to hear there will be more drink options. I'm not a big fan of Diet Coke and the tea hasn't been as good since they stopped brewing it.

What's interesting is that the new products are not being dispensed at the soda fountain. Restaurants make a huge profit on soda fountain drinks since the syrup is comparatively cheap. With these Pepsi products, however, there has to be lower profit since they aren't dispensed but are sold per container.

This also raises the issue of storage space. Think of how many sodas can be dispensed from the syrup tanks. Then translate that number into actual physical drink containers and having to find room to store them. Granted, the quantity of non-carbonated beverages sold will be quite a bit less than the number of sodas they sell, but it's still going to be an issue.

[piperdown]

We stopped at a rest area on the NY thruway, and the McDonalds there was selling water from Pepsi Co in bottles. It seemed odd, that they wouldn't sell the coke brand water. What was also weird was tat it was in a tub in front of the counter, and wasn't actually being dispensed from behind the counter.