Dr Pepper Saying Goodbye in Summer 2016-Fiction!
Summary of eRumor:
Reports that Dr Pepper is ending production after being acquired by Coca-Cola are false.
The Truth:
There’s no truth to reports that Dr Pepper is ending production.
Rumors of Dr Pepper’s demise surfaced on social media in April 2016 after old reports about a Dr Pepper bottling plant closing from 2012 was re-reported as breaking news.
Dr Pepper Bottling Co operated the plant in Dublin, Texas, under a licensing agreement with the Dr Pepper Snapple Group (DPS). Under the agreement, the Dr Pepper Bottling Co was licensed to produce and market “Dublin Dr Pepper,” a vintage version of Dr Pepper made with real can sugar and packaged in vintage bottles, a Fort Worth-based NBC affiliate reports.
In 2011, DPS filed a lawsuit in 2011 that claimed the Dublin Dr Pepper distributor had broken terms of the licensing agreement by distributing outside of an agreed upon territory. After a legal battle, the plant dropped Dublin Dr Pepper production to end the lawsuit, the Dallas News reports:
But “Dublin Dr Pepper,” the sugar-sweetened drink at the heart of the legal battle, will cease to exist and 14 of the bottler’s 40 workers, mostly in the warehouse and distribution operation, are out of jobs.
Dr Pepper Snapple will now distribute Dr Pepper sweetened with cane sugar throughout Dublin’s former territory and continue to sell it in other areas of Texas, including Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston and Waco.
The soda will be the same product Dublin sold but will not make reference to Dublin on the label.
Somehow the demise of Dublin Dr Pepper reignited on social media in April 2016, and some were incorrectly led to believe that production of Dr Pepper would stop in the summer of 2016. Some of those reports claimed that Coca-Cola had bought the Dr Brand. Both are false — Dr Pepper isn’t ending production, and Coca-Cola didn’t buy the Dr Pepper brand.
After a few days of the rumor floating around social media, Dr Pepper even released an animated graphic to “crush the rumor” that Dr Pepper was ending production:
So, given all that, we’re calling this one fiction.