Bottling Begins
While Mr. Candler's efforts focused on boosting
soda fountain sales, another concept was being developed
that would spread the enjoyment of Coca-Cola worldwide.
In 1894, in Vicksburg, Mississippi,Joseph A. Biedenham was
so impressedby the growing demand for Coca-Cola at his soda
fountain that he installed bottling machinery in the rear
of his store and began to sell cases of Coca-Cola to plantations
and lumber camps up and down the Mississippi River. He was
the first bottler of Coca-Cola.
Large-scale bottling was made possible in 1899 when Benjamin
F. Thomas and Joseph B. Whitehead of Chattanooga, Tennessee,
secured from Mr. Candler the exclusive rights to bottle
and sell Coca-Cola in practically the entire United States.
With contract in hand, they joined another Chattanoogan,
John T. Lupton, and began to develop what is today the worldwide
Coca-Cola bottling system.
The first bottling plant under the new contract was opened
in Chattanooga in 1899, the second in Atlanta the following
year. By then, realizing they could not raise enough capital
to build bottling operations nationwide, Messrs. Thomas,
Whitehead and Lupton decided to seek outside capital. They
contracted with cornpetent individuals to establish Coca-Cola
bottling operations within certain defined geographic areas.
Over the next 20 years, the number of plants grew from two
to more than 1,000, 95 percent of them locally owned and
operated. As the business grew, the development of high-speed
bottling machinery and increasingly efficient transportation
enabled bottlers to serve more customers with more products.
Today, the Coca-Cola bottling system is the largest, most
widespread production and distribution network in the world.
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Protecting a Valuable
Name
The bottlers of Coca-Cola in the early 1900s had their share
of challenges. Probably the most persistent and serious was
protecting the product and the package from imitation. Imitation
may be the sincerest form of flattery, but in the business
world it can mean the death of a good name.
Early adveresing warned of the perils of popularity. "Demand
the genuine" and "Accept no substitutes" reminded
consumers to settle for nothing less than the real thing.
The never-ending battle against substitution was the major
force behind the evolution of the distinctive hobbleskirt
bottle. A variety of straight-sided containers was used through
1915, but as soft drink competition intensified, so did imitation.
Coca-Cola deser-ved a distinctive package, and in 1916, the
bottlers approved the unique contour bottle designed by the
Root Glass Company of Terre Haute, Indiana.
The now-familar shape was granted registration as a trademark
by the U.S. Patent Office in 1977 , an honor accorded only
a handful of other packages. The Bottle thus joined the trademarks
"Coca-Cola", registred in 1893, and "Coke",
registred in 1945.
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Operating
with a small staff and a compact Physical Plant, early bottlers
distributed Coca-Cola with horse and buggy.
