The Coca-Cola Company

The Coca-Cola Company sells concentrate. Independent and company-owned bottlers carbonate, bottle, and deliver. That split is why competition cases often name a bottler or a venue contract rather than a single factory.

For decades, exclusive territories and exclusive fountain deals have been the model's spine. A restaurant, cinema, or university typically commits to one system. Coca-Cola and PepsiCo split those contracts. A third cola rarely gets the gun.

European and other authorities have examined rebate grids and exclusivity that made it costly for a retailer to stock a rival. Those cases are the template: a dominant beverage brand using target rebates so the last 10 percent of shelf is never given to a challenger.

The company has bought coffee, sports-drink, and premium-water brands. Each deal is a chance to put another beverage into the same exclusive truck and cooler.

Exclusive fountain and cooler contracts are vertical restraints that allocate outlets.

Target rebates can function as exclusivity even when a contract says the retailer is free to stock others.

Bottler consolidation reduces the number of firms that could carry a rival concentrate.

Acquisitions of adjacent drinks fill the cooler that exclusivity already reserves.

Diner menus list one cola because of a contract signed years earlier. The price on the menu is downstream of that.

A small juice or soda brand cannot buy its way into a cooler that is contractually full.