Photo Captions: Andrea Dodd (left) and Bethany Patton prepare to load Dr Pepper case into my car. Most part time kids working there attend Tarleton State in nearby Stephenville, Texas. Many are business majors.
Enormous wall mural expresses 125-year history of this soda bottling facility in Dublin, Texas, about 75 miles west of Fort Worth. Mural is by popular Texas artist Fidencio Duran in 2006. His works are compared to Salvadore Dali. --Michael Elling Photos
By Mike Elling
All Bottlers; You no longer pay a deposit charge for Dr Pepper bottles or the wooden shell. The bottling company at Dr Pepper Dublin, Texas, has dropped these traditional extra charges. From now on you only pay a flat $16.00 per case for Dr Pepper, Big Red, Suncrest Orange, and NuGrape. All you have to do is provide an empty bottle for every full bottle you get.
That puts the onus on the customer to arrive with replacement bottles whenever he purchases fresh drink in the old returnable bottles, most of which are now over 60 years of age. There are no glass plants in North America who manufacture returnable bottles in the 6.5 or 10 oz size. Only 12 oz bottles are made in Monterrey, Mexico, by the Vitro Glass Company, who apparently have no concern for the growing problem of childhood obesity. Most of the handful of US soda bottlers still filling and selling returnable bottle products have continued to do so in the classic 10 oz size. But that makes the problem of replacement ever more difficult since they must rely on finding bottles already made. Either that or go 12 oz.
Dublin solved the problem by requring customers to find and bring in the bottles themselves and have been successful in doing so. Bottles are now found still taking up space in old warehouses, garages, and home basements. But customers also find them in some of the many antique stores and malls across the nation. For them, paying a premium price for a single bottle is neglegible when considering the end result of drinking high quality products in a classic way.
For more about Dublin Dr Pepper, its museum and sandwich shop, click this excellent website: http://www.dublindrpepper.com/
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This is so neat. We had a 7-Up bottling plant in my hometown as I was growing up. It was a FIELD TRIP which nobody missed from the third grade until 8th grade. You had to have a note from your parents to enjoy the warm bottle of 7-Up right off the machine.
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