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Costco Wholesale Corp. said yesterday it will
in its stores, due to a pricing dispute between the two companies.
The stores will not remove Coca-Cola from the shelves, but does not plan to restock until the issue is resolved.
Costco wants to keep its prices down to woo recession-affected customers, and Coca-Cola needs to keep making profits; these things I understand. But here's the real trouble: this makes one less place to buy delicious, rare Mexican co*ke.
Mexican co*ke is made with real cane sugar instead of cane syrup, and
. co*ke says it is the "same exact product" as what we Americans are served, but
. (Plus they make
-- so it's got to be different.) And Mexican co*ke comes in a glass bottle, which is classy and festive. The popularity of the product led to a New York Times report last month on the "
"
Mexican co*ke can be find in little Mexican markets and restaurants, the Internet tells me, that
; but calls to the
have either yielded a "no" result (Happy Valley) or a "not picking up the phone" result (everywhere else).
:
As shoppers continue to grapple with the recession, retailers wantto win their favor by giving them low prices. But that has beencreating tension between product makers like
Coca-Cola Co ., who are working hard to maintain profit margins while meeting retailer demands.Typically such negotiations take place behind the scenes, but once in awhile, a public dispute erupts.
"Beneaththis surface of harmony, it's a dogfight out there," Gerry Khermouch,editor of Beverage Business Insights, said Tuesday at an investormeeting held by the soft drink maker at its hometown of Atlanta.
Retailerswant to wield more power in determining pricing with product makers,who they depend on to stock their customers' favorite brands, Khermouchsaid.
Costco has been aggressive in putting up signs on store shelves and notices on its Web site.
"Costcois committed to carrying name brand merchandise at the best possibleprices. At this time, Coca-Cola has not provided Costco withcompetitive pricing so that we may pass along the value our membersdeserve," said a message on the company's Web site labeled "PriceAlert!"
(co*ke photo from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dlifson/ / CC BY-NC 2.0)
Google Trends: It's all the buzz on the 'Series of Tubes.
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