EDITORIAL: Dublin Dr Pepper myths

 Courtesy of Waco Tribune Herald 

 EDITORIAL: Dublin Dr Pepper myths
 

Wednesday January 18, 2012

However you might feel about cane sugar and high-fructose corn syrup in your soft drinks, the end of Dublin Dr Pepper last week yields two important truths. First, the free-market system isn’t always so pretty or so neat. Secondly, details have an inconvenient way of scattering to the four winds the tenuous mystique surrounding any beloved product.

For instance, popular Dublin Dr Pepper was not generally produced in the engaging little Erath County town of 3,700 but down in Temple. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s important to realize it was a Temple bottler that for years made this drink, complete with the seemingly requisite cane sugar, even though it was packaged and sold to folks as Dublin Dr Pepper.

Second, Jack McKinney, executive director of the Dr Pepper Museum here in Waco, tells the Tribune-Herald editorial board that Southwest Canners in Nacogdoches also bottles Dr Pepper with cane sugar in 20-ounce plastic bottles, 2-liter bottles and eight-can packs. And you can get Dr Pepper made with cane sugar at grocery outlets such as H-E-B and the Dr Pepper Museum.

Finally, it’s speculation, but we’re betting you’ll see more bottlers forsaking corn syrup for sugar as ethanol continues to pump corn prices higher, finally making them competitive with sugar prices, which is why bottlers years ago began using corn syrup — another nifty lesson in free-market dynamics.

All that said, there’s a good argument to be made that Dr Pepper Snapple, which owns Dr Pepper, might have been misguided in efforts to legally halt Dublin Dr Pepper operations. When your group sales were $5.6 billion in 2010 and Dublin Dr Pepper is making about $7 million a year, the old David vs. Goliath analogy does anything but spur sales.

On the other hand, it’s just as likely Dr Pepper Snapple was taking some heat from bottlers around the state who took notice of individuals who bought loads of delicious Dublin Dr Pepper, then hauled them off elsewhere to sell, cutting into profit margins of the others. And, after all, Dublin Dr Pepper was originally to be confined to a six-county area.

Finally, as is usual in such legal settlements, you can be fairly sure that the owners of Dublin Dr Pepper did not walk away from this empty-handed. There may be wailing and gnashing of teeth over in Dublin, but bad feelings will pass. When we talked with visitors from Shreveport, La., and Gainesville, Fla., at the Dr Pepper Museum on Tuesday, none had even heard of the infamous Dublin Dr Pepper flap.

“I love Dr Pepper,” said Crystal Tatum, of Shreveport, a former Texan who was at the museum with 18-year-old daughter Jackie Brown, a student at Baylor University. “But I really miss Big Red.”
Our take: It’s time for everyone to get past all this. We can’t put it better than McKinney did: “It’s like we have two good friends — Dublin, whom we’ve worked with on exhibits and collectibles, and Dr Pepper Snapple, and now they’re getting a divorce. And it’s all about business. So are we going to say bad things about the bride or the groom? Well, the answer is neither. If they ever get back together, they’d both hate you!”

-Waco Tribune Editorials

 http://www.wacotrib.com/opinion/editorials/137544203.html




 

Thoughts on Dublin Dr. Pepper
(some of it is repetitive of the article.)

           
            ) I love Original Dr. Pepper (ODP as much as the next person. OPD has been my main soda of choice since I can remember, and the same goes for just about everyone in my family. I was born and raised in the town that OPD was born it. I visit the Dr. Pepper museum at least once a year and at the end snag a Dr. Pepper float.

            ) I love Dublin Dr. Pepper too. It is like a sweet and rare treat for most of us, only once I started workin at Uncle Dan’s did I have daily access to it. If I could I would drink it every day, but I preferred to keep it as a once in a while drink… all that sugar can do some body NOT good. It was a nice occasional sweet liquidy treat.

So after reading the above article, some basic research and from what I’ve heard on my own account, here is what I think of the whole Dr. Pepper closing down Dublin Pr. Pepper.

            Yes I am sorry to see the Dublin Dr. Pepper plant and factory closed. But was it a real surprise? Unfortunately Dublin breached its agreement with Dr. Pepper to sell its special product in an outlined district (6 counties). This special agreement was set up to “protect” other, Texas Local, Imperial sugar Dr. Pepper.  I suppose Dublin thought they could make more profit by going outside these lines, and take a risk…. I know of at least 3 places in Waco alone that carried Dublin on tap… Waco was pretty far from the district. There was no real reason for these places to sell DDP, besides the hype of the name. They could’ve just as easily sold bottled Dr. Pepper made with the same Imperial sugar from HEB or their local purveyor that was provided by the for mentioned places in the article.

            Dublin brought this on themselves, plain and simple. They broke the agreement; they were cutting into other peoples profits. That what happens when you step on others peoples toes and you have a rather big target on you. I know If I owned a business that specialized in a product, and was the only one allowed to sell it in my area… and then found out another business with a similar product was shipping and selling their stuff on my turf… Id be pretty upset to, and Im sure if you were honest with yourself, you’d be pissed too.

            So to all you who suddenly "hate" and claim you’re gonna “boycott” Dr. Pepper/Snapple Company for this “Horrific” act; Remember, they had no intention of shutting Dublin down until they started to get complaint. Dublin knew the risk, took it, and unfortunately lost. It’s over and done with, move on, quit your whining, take it like a Texan and head on over to your local HEB where you can still buy Dr. Pepper made with REAL IMPERIAL SUGAR from your local grocery store, like HEB. It just won’t have the “Dublin” name on it. I bought a pack of it yesterday myself… MMMmmm refreshing.