Cans v. Pop Bottles

In a big, brand-new soft-drink plant at Compton, Calif., a stocky, 68-year-old engineer slopped around in spilled root-beer syrup, adjusting, testing and breaking in $450,000 worth of canning machinery. Allan Baldwin Rogers was at his favorite job: getting a new Can-a-Pop plant into production.

As he watched, a Rogers-designed dispenser measured a shot of syrup into a 12-02. can, a carbonator fizzed it full of sparkling water, a sealer crimped on a flat top, and the first can of root beer rolled off the line of Can-a-Pop's third and largest plant (one of the largest in the country). By last week Rogers had his clashing $1,250,000 cannery up to peak production of 30,000 cases daily.

His new plant permitted Rogers to claim that he is now the biggest canner of soda pop, bigger even than ex-Pepsi-Cola Boss Walter S. Mack Jr.'s Cantrell & Cochrane Corp. (TIME, April 27, 1953). Whether first or not, Rogers and his sales-minded son Robert, 32, in less than a year have converted a failing brewery (inherited by Allan's wife) into a company turning out 44,600 cases of pop a day from plants in Compton, Peoria, Ill. and Sheridan, Wyo. To meet the demand, the Rogerses are still expanding, with franchised plants planned for Hutchinson, Kans., Florida (near Tampa), Minneapolis, Dallas and Philadelphia, and two new flavors, cola and lemon-lime, coming out this summer.

Other canners besides Can-a-Pop are invading the fast-growing market. Bev-Rich Inc., backed by the makers of Valley Forge beer, has four flavors on sale in the East, expects to sell 2,000.000 cases the first year. Canada Dry is test-marketing canned Spur cola in the Phila- delphia area. In Rochester and Syracuse, N.Y., Pabst Brewing Co.'s soft-drink division launched a singing commercial campaign for "Tasty Tap-a-Cola in-the flat-top can." White Rock Corp. is selling canned root beer, lemon-lime and black-cherry pop in Los Angeles. In Chicago, Dad's Root Beer is gearing up for cans.

Most dealers prefer cans for the obvious reasons -- less shelf space, no breakage, no bottle-handling and refunds. But there are still two big holdouts: Coca-Cola, with about half of U.S. soft-drink sales, and Pepsi-Cola, with about 12% of all sales. Pepsi tried cans in 1950 while Mack was still its boss, but abandoned them when some blew up because of the high carbonation. But if canned pop continues its fast growth, both Coke and Pepsi may have to change their minds.

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