The Pop Shoppe

The Pop Shoppe was a soft drink retailer originating in 1969 at London, Ontario, Canada. The Pop Shoppe avoided using traditional retail channels, selling its soda through franchised outlets and its own stores in refillable bottles in 24-cartons.

Within three years, the company grew within the province to over 500 stores, and entered the United States in the following three years. Eventually, Pop Shoppe was selling 30 different flavours of soda throughout Canada and 12 American states. National Hockey League veteran Eddie Shack was the predominant spokesman for the brand.

In the early 1980s sales slowed, largely blamed on competition from private label grocery store soft drink brands. The original company ceased operations in 1983 and its trademarks expired in 1993. A few small soft drink bottlers in the US have at times sold pop using some of the millions of bottles and cases left abandoned by the closure, and were not related or authorized brands.

Toronto businessman Brian Kirchberg began plans to re-establish The Pop Shoppe brand in 2002. .

The new Pop Shoppe flavours are Cream Soda, Lime Ricky (not to be confused with the alcoholic Lime Rickey drink), Root Beer, Black Cherry, Orange, Grape, and Pineapple. Cola was later added, making eight flavours now available.

References

* Paul-Mark Rendon, "Marketing Magazine": "Popping down memory lane", Toronto: Rogers Media Inc., September 27 2004
* [http://www.brandchannel.com/features_profile.asp?pr_id=262 brandchannel: "The Pop Shoppe - pops back"] (12 December 2005)

External links

* [http://www.thepopshoppe.com The Pop Shoppe official website]