Royal Crown Bottling Company Of Chicago Inc history

The Hatchers enjoyed enough success to move to larger production facilities in 1907, but, as they quickly realized, the greatest profits to be made were in the cola market, led by the burgeoning giant Coca-Cola.

By 1911 Chero-Cola ranked as the company’s greatest-selling product, the first in a long line of product introductions that would eclipse the popularity of its predecessor.

In 1912 Union Bottling Works changed its name to Chero-Cola Company, an enterprise reorganized to manufacture a line of syrups to be sold to franchised bottlers.

When Hatcher filed to register Chero-Cola as a trademark in 1914, Coca-Cola quickly responded, demanding that the word “cola” be removed from all advertising.

There was even a cola called Klu Ko Kolo, made to attract those suddenly interested in the Ku Klux Klan after the group was featured in D.W. Griffith’s 1915 movie The Birth of a Nation.

By 1920 Chero-Cola stood as a thriving business, with 700 franchise bottling plants scattered throughout the South and Midwest, but when sugar prices collapsed during the early years of the decade, the company’s considerable cache of sugar became a liability.

After Hatcher overheard a salesman refer to a competitor’s soft drink bottle as being “knee-high,” he changed Melo’s name to Nehi, a brand name that became familiar to generations of consumers after its 1924 introduction.

By 1928 sales of Nehi beverages were driving the company’s financial growth to such an extent that Hatcher changed the name of his business to Nehi, Inc.

In 1934, Nehi came out with Royal Crown, and over the next several years its sales increased tenfold.

First developed by a student at the University of Illinois in 1937, it was initially sold as a tabletop sweetener.

How could such dubious results be admissible? Donovan pointed to a legal loophole called the Delaney Clause, an amendment to the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act of 1938 established by a senator named James Delaney, who investigated insecticides and carcinogens in the food industry in the late '50s.

In 1940 the company pioneered blind taste tests, using the promotional strategy more than three decades before other soft drink manufacturers did so.

In 1952, the founder of a sanitarium in Williamsburg, Brooklyn named Hyman Kirsch invented a sugar-free soda called No-Cal.

In 1954, it became the first company to nationally distribute soda in aluminum cans.

In 1959, Nehi changed its name to match its bestselling product, becoming the Royal Crown Cola Company.

When Diet Rite hit shelves in 1962, it was a smashing success.

In 1964, a study linked cyclamate to cancer in animals, and raised the possibility that it could have adverse effects on humans.

In 1965, Coke came out with a citrus-flavored diet soda called Fresca.

Royal Crown Cola’s eye-catching growth came screeching to a halt in October 1969.

In 1978 Royal Crown Cola Company became Royal Crown Companies Inc.

In 1985, after it found out that Coke was putting a specially engineered Coke can aboard the Challenger space shuttle, Pepsi quickly rigged up its own can and pressured NASA into letting it onboard.

In 1987, the government convicted him on tax evasion charges, and soon after investigated him for insider trading.

In 1993 Peltz and May acquired Royal Crown and Arby’s through their company, Triarc Companies, Inc., eventually organizing Royal Crown as a subsidiary of RC/Arby’s Corporation, a holding company that also oversaw the operation of Arby’s.

A new brand, Royal Crown Draft Cola, was introduced in 1995 amid great expectations, but production of the product was discontinued roughly a year later.

An Onion headline from 1997 seemed to sum things up: "RC Cola Celebrates 10th Purchase." Through the '80s and into the '90s, Royal Crown continued to lose market share while its two main competitors gobbled it up.