Posted on 12/17/2002 7:54:00 PM PST by concentric circles
The world of specialty soda pop is about to explode. Strikingly similar to the resurgence that craft beer experienced two and a half decades ago, this "soda pop renaissance" is about flavor, quality, variety and all-natural ingredients. John Nese (pronounced "niece"), a soda pop enthusiast and proprietor of Galco's Old World Grocery in Highland Park, Calif., is betting his family's 105-year-old business that America is ready for an all-out carbonated revolution. Having assembled the largest assortment of specialty sodas, microbrewed pops, imported sodas and original old-time soda brands under one roof, Nese is pioneering a mission to bring flavor to the people.
From the outside, Galco's looks like an ordinary small grocery store. Inside is Nese's colossal inventory featuring 450 different varieties of sodas. Galco's is packed with pop and old-time novelties from top to bottom, end to end. Its 1970s-era decor greatly enhances the old-time atmosphere, an instant warp back in time. A deli department (with a killer sub-sandwich, the Blockbuster) and a few packaged goods are all that remain from the store's earlier years as an Italian grocery. Soda is what sprouts from the old fixtures today.
Once full of fruits and veggies, produce racks are now stacked with case upon case of soda pop dispatched from nearly every state. Old-style floor freezers have been switched off and capped with displays of new soda brands like Brainalizer, Satan's Punch, Willie's Butterscotch Hemp, HOT ROD (the car magazine) Nitrous Orange and Jolt Cola ("with twice the caffeine"). Microbrewed sodas from microbreweries such as Tommyknocker and Thomas Kemper share shelf space with imported brands like Afri-cola from Germany and Bundaberg from Australia.
The ultimate return to yesteryear is the assortment of old-time soda brands. Nese highlights some of the rarest and most memorable of soda pops, like Nehi, Moxie, Green River, Grapette, Sun Drop, Bubble Up and Red Rock. Nese doesn't just sell "soda" at Galco's; this Baron of Bubbles is a monger of memories.
"I had a customer come in here the other day," Nese said. "He tasted a Bireley's Orange and said, 'Parker Junior High School, 1943! I drank one of these every single day. The bottle is not the same, the label is not the same, but the taste is exactly the same! It has not changed!'" You can see in Nese's eyes that this type of reaction is his greatest reward. His quests for old recipes and defunct brands can sometimes take up to six months and can cover two or three continents to find the owner.
Nese's discoveries have also included an amazing assortment of offshoot novelties. Galco's sells over 50 old-time candies, 57 bottled waters and 350 microbrewed and imported craft beers in addition to soda. It took Nese over six years to transform his family's small Italian grocery store into a soda enthusiast's dream. Strangely, it all happened because of the competition.
It was 1995 when Nese was faced with a career-altering dilemma: do something extraordinary with his grocery store or go out of business. Galco's inventory had dwindled as its retail prices had overinflated. Nese connected his situation to the big supermarket chains' takeover of the small grocery distribution system and the subsequent small-grocer wholesale co-op collapse. The big chains either bought up the small grocers or forced them to buy in large bulk quantities to maintain low wholesale prices. Galco's small orders sent its wholesale prices skyrocketing.
"As a small business, we couldn't be in the grocery business anymore," Nese said. He noted that the first thing the large grocery chains and the beverage distributors did was claim that "little stores can't buy as cheaply as we can," so they increased the price of soda $10 a case.
"I'm talking $10 a case -- just like that!" said Nese. Galco's struggled to sell anything at a profit. What Nese thought was, "If we can't compete, then we really have to do something different."
According to Nese, the answer was simple: "There is one thing that everybody does, even if they don't like to cook. That's drink. Whether it's wine, beer, water or soda pop -- whatever it happens to be, they drink something." Nese began the Galco's transformation by supplementing the beer cooler with microbrews. "It was the trend at that time," Nese commented. "But the buyers had to be 21." To reach customers of all ages, he selected "forgotten" novelty brands of sodas.
"I like old sodas," he said, "so I got 10 to 12 at first." Immediately his customers embraced the concept, wanting more. "Each day customers would come in and ask me if I had this soda or that soda that they'd had as a kid," Nese recalled. He followed up on every customer request, investigating soda companies and bottlers throughout the United States and abroad. Each time he found the owner of an original formula or brand, Nese would buy half of the entire bottling run. Four to six months later, Nese would be asking for the second half of the run. Seeing solid, steady sales, bottlers became believers. Two years later, Nese said, "when I got to about 250 brands, it became serious."
The "national" soda giants were taking notice. To see what Nese was doing, each national bottler sent over its salespeople, who then brought in district managers, who finally brought in top vice presidents. Apparently, two of the national bottlers viewed Galco's as a threat. One raised its wholesale prices even higher. The other bottler had its group of sales executives walk out of the store, canceled every pending order and was not heard from again.
"That's when it dawned on me," Nese said. "The shelf space is mine. It's not theirs. Nobody is paying me for the shelf space. I don't need slotting fees. I can stock whatever I want." He severed ties with his national brand soda distributors, losing two of his biggest sellers, Coke and Pepsi. At the same time, he kindled new relationships with small independent bottlers. "In six years," he said, pointing to his aisles and aisles of sodas, "I've gathered together all of these small companies."
Nese became a true friend and ally of the independent small soda-makers and bottlers. As early microbrewers had done, Nese launched a grass roots campaign with Galco's to spread the ideology about specialty sodas. Nese believes that his mission is about teaching soda history and lore, promoting the craft, finding bottlers to re-create recipes of old, and resurrecting a long-forgotten soda industry -- an industry with hundreds of unique brands created by small bottlers.
"Here in the United States, soda goes back to the Pilgrim days," Nese said. "One of the very oldest sodas is spruce beer. The colonists were taking the bark off the spruce tree, putting it in water and fermenting it." Actually, the first sodas were young, under-fermented beers. "While it was 'carbonating' they would drink it," Nese said, then added jokingly, "Of course, if they let it 'go' a little longer, it made them feel better. It became alcoholic."
Soda underwent major changes since that time. By the late 1800s, fermentation was eliminated in the soda-making process with the use of force-carbonated water. Liquid extracts replaced fruits and spices, and commercially produced sodas came in two forms: cane sugar-based syrup and ready-to-drink carbonated bottles. The bottled version is basically modern-day soda pop. By the turn of the 20th century, some soda-makers had established their brands and products on a national scale. Flavor and variety reigned.
But soda took a turn for the worse shortly after World War II. Nese cited four distinct "manufacturing" changes made by the national brands that turned soda into a less dynamic, less flavorful, less fizzy beverage. The first two changes were the implementation of cost-reduction devices: corn syrup and plastic bottles. The other two changes were events that diminished variety and choice: unethical contract-bottling agreements and fees for slotting space. Nese described each of these four changes as follows:
Corn syrup: "Corn syrup is a much less costly sweetener than cane sugar," Nese said. "It's easier to handle in bulk and is more stable in the bottle." He contrasted cane sugar, a natural flavor-enhancing sweetener, with corn syrup, a sweetening agent only. "The one sweetened with sugar 'pops' with flavor. In the regular one, with corn syrup, the flavor drops out quickly." (To prove his case, Nese suggested doing a horizontal tasting between the "regular," corn syrup-sweetened version of Coca-Cola Classic and the kosher version of the same. The kosher version uses only sugar as its sweetener.)
Plastic bottles: To reduce shipping weight and increase storage capacity, glass bottles were replaced by aluminum cans and plastic. This, however, drastically affected aroma, flavor and carbonation. The gas that is used to inflate the small, accordion-like plastic cylinders into full-sized bottles stays inside the bottle well into the filling stage. Once capped, there is a trace amount left inside. "That's the first thing you'll smell when you open up a plastic bottle," Nese said. "There are too many reactions going on with aluminum and plastic." Nese noted that soda in either plastic bottles or cans has less dissolved carbon dioxide than soda bottled in glass, emphasizing that the "pop" in soda pop was derived from the effects of carbonation.
Contract bottling: Using established facilities as cost-saving enticements, the national brands would frequently offer to share bottling lines and distribution centers with smaller soda companies (contract bottling), who did not have the capital to modernize their facility or open a larger facility for canning or bottling. This gave the national brands an upper hand. As the national brands expanded, absorbing competing brands and adding new flavors to existing product lines (like root beers or lemon/lime sodas), a national company would cancel a small soda-maker's contract. The national brand would cite a conflict of interest. The small soda company was decimated in an instant. "Boom! No more distribution," Nese exclaimed, "and they cut all of the small company's production. Now they couldn't even afford to go back into business."
Slotting fees: Eventually slotting fees crept in. The national brands' distributors began buying retailers' shelf space. This tactic guaranteed the distributor a point of sale for its products, with a contingency agreement guaranteeing that the competitor's products would not take up that space. With deeper pockets than the smaller soda companies and their distributors, the national brands gobbled up the shelf space, displacing the smaller companies right out of the market, literally. "They are doing this right now in Europe," Nese commented. "They go in, buy the shelf space and get rid of the competition -- just knock them out. No more competition!"
"So all of these little things led to the demise of the little bottlers," Nese said. It's the battle he said he is up against. However, Nese has found worldwide support for his cause, garnering loads of praise and publicity. "There was an article written in Europe that mentioned what we were doing to fight Coke and Pepsi. Little, tiny us," Nese said proudly, standing in front of a bulletin board plastered with numerous magazine and newspaper articles. Nese has been on television, too. Huell Howser taped a half-hour "Visiting -- with Huell Howser" show all about Nese and his sodas for California PBS stations. Nese can also be seen nationally on two episodes of the "Food Unwrapped" TV series airing on the Food Network.
Next, Nese plans to host a few instructional soda tastings at the shop. Also, he is in the process of acquiring more rare sodas from, as he cryptically said, "a man from Ohio who has a briefcase full of endangered soda brands and the exclusive rights to the recipes." Yet the biggest announcement is that the soda division of Galco's will be expanding into an empire of specialty sodas shops -- all over the West Coast!
"Our next step is to set up and license 'Soda Pop Stops,'" Nese said with excitement. Similar to a franchise, this is structured as a distribution agreement between the retailer and the small bottlers to carry the specialty brands under the auspices of big brother Nese. There are no slotting fees, no middlemen. "There is nothing between the bottler and the store, so [the retailer] can act as a distributor in their area. This way, you are building independent businesses; you're not building chains," Nese said.
Participating Soda Pop Stop outlets will have full access to Galco's specialty soda distributors. That gives every Soda Pop Stop the opportunity to have the same brands and 450-plus selection as Galco's massive soda lineup. Each outlet will receive a point-of-sale sign/display for its window to certify that it is an official Soda Pop Stop. "Then you'll know that's where you'll be able to get all of the soda pops you've been looking for," Nese pointed out.
"The perfect location for a Soda Pop Stop is a liquor store, because liquor stores have excess shelf space," said Nese. "Liquor sales are declining. Beer sales have increased substantially and taken more of that space, but soda pop is where it's all going to go." Nevertheless, any retail store can apply to become Soda Pop Stop-certified. "We'll start here [in Los Angeles]. Then it will be all of California and the West Coast," Nese said. "We're working really hard to get this whole thing set up and off the ground."
"This is for independence," he added. The objective is to give the consumer a wide choice of what to drink, and simultaneously give small soda companies a fighting chance in the marketplace.
Specialty soda pop-makers and independent bottlers now have a leader with a cause, willing to put flavor, tradition and variety ahead of the accountant-built national colas. John Nese is ready to take them all into the effervescent mainstream. Given Nese's proven success with Galco's, his Soda Pop Stop alliances and revitalized distribution channels with specialty soda companies will make the soda pop revolution imminent. It is time for the consumer to enjoy more variety and flavor in soda pop.
Go out and celebrate the soda pop renaissance, and bring the whole family. Unlike a trip to a microbrewery, a visit to Galco's is an all-ages experience. Anyone can enjoy specialty sodas. It's a great opportunity to show the next generation what sodas you drank as a kid. It will be new to them. Or, experience for yourself a real soda, like one made from whole fruit, jalape–o or hops. Galco's has it all. Just ask John Nese, the new "King of Pop." Hop on down to the original one-stop soda pop shop.
Galco's Old World Grocery
5702 York Blvd.
Highland Park, CA 90042
323-255-7115
http://www.sodapopstop.com
BTW, if you are fond of malted beverages, stay away from the Celebrator link, it will only encourage you.
Ah, just give me a Coke.
Don't even get me started on the margarine aisle. Looks like butter, just like butter, can't believe it's not butter, feels like butter, better than butter.... 100's of em!!!!
So, where is the butter? Hidden in the corner is a cube of Land O Lakes butter, and the tub with whipped butter, as if they are the red headed step child.
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