Beverage Industry Insider - July 22, 2008 - Newsletter

MillerCoors picks Chicago

The newly combined business of MillerCoors announced last week that it intends to makes its headquarters in Chicago, although it will maintain substantial operations in Golden, Colo., and Milwaukee. Chicago provided a neutral site, which reflects the balance of the Miller and Coors ownership, demonstrating that neither company has a controlling interest, it said.

Miller’s hometown of Milwaukee will serve as the MillerCoors Eastern division office, and the Great Lakes sales region office. In Colorado, the company will maintain the headquarters of Molson Coors Brewing Co., as well as the Western division office and the Mountain sales region office for MillerCoors. Both the Milwaukee and Golden breweries will remain in operation.

The Chicago office is expected to open next summer, and the company says it expects 300 to 400 people to be employed in the new location.

Mountain Valley uses recycled PET

Mountain Valley Spring Water Co., Hot Springs, Ark., announced it will begin using FDA-approved recycled PET resin in its water bottles. The company worked with New Horizons Plastics Recycling, Greenville, S.C., to source the recycled content, which primarily includes post-consumer plastic.

“The missing link in bottled water container recycling in the United States is someone who is willing to buy and reuse the recycled material,” says Breck Speed, chief executive officer at Mountain Valley. “We plan to help kick start and improve PET recycling efforts by creating economic demand for recycled content.”

Mountain Valley’s Veriplas containers division worked with New Horizons to combine recycled content with virgin material, and says it also will make recycled PET containers available to Veriplas customers.

“We supply over 60 independent water bottlers in the United States with PET containers and we have already received strong indications of interest in RPET from many of them,” Speed says. “At the end of the day, it really is a fairly common sense thing to do. PET resin is useful stuff and it is kinda dumb to throw it away.”

Colbert named to Lorillard board

Virgis W. Colbert, senior advisor to Miller Brewing Co., and Beverage Industry’s 2002 Executive of the Year, has been elected to the board of Lorillard Inc., Greensboro, N.C. He will serve as chair of the compensation committee and on the nominating and corporate governance committee.

Cheerwine hits Atlanta

North Carolina’s Cheerwine soft drink launched in Atlanta this month, and will be available in Publix, Kroger and a number of other retail outlets throughout the area. Cheerwine-maker Carolina Beverage Corp., Salisbury, N.C., says the brand already is outperforming sales projections in the area.

“This is a remarkable brand,” said Tom Barbitta, chief marketing officer for Cheerwine. “It is a small, little known brand that has a loyal following and obviously has very happy memories for thousands of people who grew up drinking and loving the sparkling beverage.”