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I am in the process of renogotiating my soda contract. I have a friend who owns a major pizza chain store. He told me about the cost per gallon, signing bonus, gallon rebates, and kickbacks he gets from the soda company he contracts with (same company as mine). I contacted my rep and told her my contract had expired and wanted to renogotiate. She is preparing a proposal. She told me that as a returning customer they will offer me more than they did as a new contract. I also went to the competition and asked them what they could do for me.

What kind of deal do you guys have?

$42-$47 range seems about normal for the NorthWest. For some curious reason, regional foodservice wholesalers are delivering BIBs for less than you can get it from local bottlers, or national accounts.

"signing bonus, gallon rebates, and kickbacks"... sheesh... just give me the darn price & leave out the gimmicks!

Burney,

We are now using a regional distributor which stocks both Coke & Pepsi. We are liking this arrangement particularly well as it helps us get good deals on kid cups and kid trays with either Pepsi or Coke advertising logos through PMG. (Also, it really wows people to have a choice between Coke & Pepsi). Our current prices are about $42 - 44 per 5 gal bib. (Different box sizes work out to slightly different costs/5 gal. We have never seen any of these rebates or signing bonuses. We are a much bigger customer now than we were when we had only 1 screen but are still pretty happy to settle for free machine rent and great repair service. We can now get repair service 24 hours per day. We expect to get 2 new machines when we rebuild our concession stand here in the next couple months.

For those who may not have heard Sam's Clubs have started carrying 5 gallon BIBs but only Coke products. In my area the Sam's price is cheaper than my local distributors. I also like the fact that there is no minimum order at Sams. My local Sams is very close to my theatre so I no longer have to carry lots of inventory.

If you purchase BIB's through Sam's Club, who did you get your dispenser through?

Coca Cola Fountain will provide the equipment you need. Where you get the syrup doesn't matter to them, as long as it says "Coke". They own it all... why should they care how you got it? As I've found out in my region... they don't