Concentrate

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Way back when I was a kid (come on… I’m old- but not THAT old!) , there were companies that sold chemicals in a packet or box that we mixed up when we needed them. Two that come to mind were FR and Edlaw.

FR sold the chemicals I needed to mix so I could develop my film and print my pictures. Edlaw was a firm that sold premeasured powder that could be added to water and produce dialysate for kidney treatments.

Back in the late 60’s, one of the forerunners of dialysis therapy (Dr. Willem “Pim” Kolff) approached the owner of Edlaw to make a liquid concentrate for dialysate that would make it easier for practitioners to provide the therapy. Ed Simon thought that was pretty bizarre. Why would anyone want to pay to have a liquid concentrate made and the freight incurred to get it to a clinic? So, he demurred. Pim went to another firm (Travenol Laboratories, now known as Baxter) and Edlaw became an also ran in the dialysis business.

On the other hand, FR chemicals decided that selling liquids wasn’t such a bad idea and began making those solutions so hobbyists (and professionals) could produce those wonderful pictures they desired. (Their business basically disappeared once kiosks were installed in almost every corner drug store and digital photography became the norm.)

(One of my firms produced dialysate concentrate and shipped those bottles and drums around the world. We had started the practice back in the day of Osborne Computers (yes, long ago). I had written programs that would immediately calculate the delivered cost to each clinic [which meant we needed the exact freight costs for every zip code in the US and a whole bunch of overseas locations]).

But, there’s still a big company that sells its concentrate (ok, more than one- but this one is the oldest and longest duration) around the world. Back when it started (late 19th Century), being in Atlanta was crucial. All the rail (which was the primary bulk freight mode of the times) lines ran through the city, covering the South and a portion of the North. Which is how Coca Cola operated.

It sold franchises to bottling companies (who needed to invest their own capital to build those facilities, keeping Coke’s money out of the picture) to mix the pop concentrate and produce the bottled pop sold in their local regions. But the one ingredient necessary was clean water. And, it was the local firm that pressured their local region to produce good quality municipal water they could buy. Not some distant company like Coca Cola.

(Back in the 1980s and 1990s, it was a breeze to discern from where certain Coke products emanated. Because the water used by certain bottling plants lacked “quality” and you could taste the difference. [OK. Maybe only if you drank 5 or 6 liters of the stuff daily. That was me.])

It also meant that Coke could keep its formulae secret. Because the bottlers buy the syrup (caffeine and coca extract) from Coke, there is no need to divulge the ‘secret sauce’ composition to them. And, it also means that the bottlers (and Coke) could change suppliers of various other ingredients if they didn’t like the price- or control- these vendors imposed.

It’s also how sugar was removed from the original Coke formula. Once HFCS (high fructose corn syrup) was developed and perfected, it offered the firms a dirt-cheap alternative to sugar. (By the way, if you want to have the REAL Coke, the one that was around when I was a kid, you have to purchase your pop in March and April. Searching for those bottles that have bright yellow caps. Because these are “kosher for Passover”- which means the pop is made with sugar and not HCFS, an ingredient which fails the Passover test.)

Another way Coke maintained control of its product was to convert to non-returnable containers. Because that meant every bottler had to invest in new- and expensive- technology. That gave Coke the ability to consolidate its bottler franchises to only larger, more profitable firms. (It also saved about 55% of the fuel used by the bottlers to distribute full pop bottles and pick up the empties. Not including the extra labor involved.)

Of course, that added profit of the bottlers (and Coke) came at the expense of the public. We, the citizenry, had to clean up the one-way bottles that ended up in our trash, on our streets, and in our parks. (Yes, it’s why local governments began imposing deposits on these disposables; but that just moved the costs from the general public to the consuming public- still not placing the burden on the bottlers or Coke.)

(By the way, one still doesn’t really recycle the PET that is used in those pop bottles back into new ones. Because it is both difficult and expensive to insure the proper bottle quality.)

Still enjoying your pop?

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