Your Independent Coca-Cola Bottler Part 1

            In the early years The Coca-Cola Company was content with manufacturing syrup concentrate for soda fountain sales and had no interest in bottling Coca-Cola for retail sale.

           The bottling rights were sold to Benjamin F. Thomas and Joseph B. Whitehead from Chattanooga, Tennessee, who developed the bottling franchise system. A Coca-Cola bottler would be set up under a franchise agreement and was usually owned by a family or group of investors. The franchise included the right to purchase the syrup concentrate from The Coca-Cola Company at a set price, bottle and sell Coca-Cola within a specified service territory and The Coca-Cola Company would handle national advertising campaigns. This created thousands of small but profitable local and regional Coca-Cola bottlers that were independent of each other and independent of The Coca-Cola Company.