At 100 years old, bottler fiesty in market share fight

Ed Frazer, president and owner of Renobased Dr Pepper-7Up Bottling Company of the West, finds himself in the unenviable position of competing against two of the biggest marketing juggernauts in the history of American business.

But the company that this year celebrates its 100th anniversary is doing just fine in its competition with Coke and Pepsi through some old-fashioned ways of doing business.

Like building personal relationships with retailers, and cementing those relationships with service that bigger bottling companies can't touch.

"Basically, anything our customers want us to do, we'll do," says Frazer.

The soda marketing wars play out in a hundred of seemingly small decisions which brand gets a push on the front of a grocer's advertising supplement, which cooler gets placed next to the express checkout at the storefront,whose vending machine gets the good location.

And each of those decisions by a retailer can be influenced by service and relationships, says Tim Davis, director of sales and marketing for the bottler.

Another old-fashioned strategy: Build volume at every turn.

Dr Pepper-7Up Bottling Company of the West produces about 4 million cases of soda a year from its Reno plant, serving the Boise and Chico markets along with northern Nevada, and it looks for every opportunity to assemble tiny niches into significant market share.

While 7Up sales in northern Nevada are above national figures, they've been essentially flat, Frazer says.

Fast-growing Dr Pepper has taken up most of the slack, and the bottler further builds volume with niche products such as energy drinks it distributes Rockstar and Power House, among others as well as vitamin-fortified beverages.

Volume is particularly important because costs fuel and plastic bottles, most critically are rising at the same time that beverage companies have limited leverage to boost their prices, says Donna Kapsoff, vice president of finance.

But the company also needs to exercise care that it doesn't take on so many brands, some of them slow-moving, that it's caught with high inventories, says Mark Cerfoglio, vice president of operations.

The company's old-fashioned strategies show up, too, in its relationships with employees.

Frazer grew up in the business launched by his grandfather, and his executive team has a combined total of about 100 years experience with the company.

Try this for loyalty: "As their employee, there isn't anything I wouldn't do for this family," says Davis."We are appreciated.We are thanked.We are rewarded for doing a good job." Frazer's grandfather, Edward Chism, began manufacturing ice cream in 1905.

Chism's Ice Cream Co.

began bottling soft drinks in 1929 starting with Hire's Root Beer (a natural with ice cream), and adding the then-new 7Up in 1933.

After Chism's death in 1956, his wife, Clara, decided to sell the ice cream recipes to Carnation at the same time that the company added Dr Pepper to its bottling lineup.

Frazer and his mother the daughter of Edward and Clara took over management of the company in the 1970s, and Frazer became president in 1988.His daughter,Molly, has joined the company as assistant director of sales and marketing.

Entrepreneur Harvey Whittemore took an ownership stake in the company during the 1990s, and Dr Pepper-7Up Bottling Co.

of the West acquired distribution operations at Boise and Chico.

Today, Frazer says he continues to look for acquisition possibilities but only in the turf contiguous to that already served by his company.

Otherwise, he says, he loses his company's efficiencies of scale in distribution and advertising.

The company is celebrating its centennial with a big investment in marketing materials everything from employee uniforms to special cans as well as special events such as a golf day and a dinner for its 150-plus employees.

It's all expensive, Frazer acknowledges, but he says,"You only turn 100 once."