Posted 1/13/2012 05:22:00 PM by Douglas

The cease fire in the Cola-Wars is long over, yet the good guys lost an important skirmish today in the tiny town of Dublin, Texas. Long before the anti-hfcs movement took hold, one lone Dr. Pepper bottler stilled used pure cane sure in their Dr. Pepper, and they carved out quite niche market in their town of less than 3,000 people. But apparently their internet sales got them too much attention. So much so, it got the attention of their parent company, who took a lamentable, if not predictable plan of action: They sued to shut down the oldest Dr. Pepper bottler in the world.

Dr Pepper Snapple Group, which owns Dr Pepper, sued the plant in June, saying Dublin Dr Pepper was diluting the Dr Pepper brand and hijacking sales from other Dr Pepper bottlers, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Diluting the brand? Consider this: The Dublin bottler had sales of $7 million a year. Dr Pepper Snapple Group had sales of $5.6 billion in 2010. And, the Journal reported, Dublin Dr Pepper makes up less than 1% of Dr Pepper's annual U.S. volume.

Yeah, that sounds about right. Unleash a public relations nightmare because a historic family owned business is cutting in to 0.01% of your annual sales.

They say they'll keep making cane sugar Dr Pepper elsewhere, which is good, I guess, since it tastes so much better. But I'm sure I share the sentiment of the unemployed Dublin residents who don't understand why they couldn't continue doing what they've done for the past 120 years. Hopefully there'll be enough public backlash from this that they'll open up the Dublin plant again. Dr Pepper/Snapple would pay damages if they had any balls.