Coke Raising U.S. Soda Prices, Citing Tariffs

[left-of-center2012]

The company said it would take the unusual step of raising prices on its carbonated sodas in the middle of the year. Chief Executive James Quincey said the move was in response to rising costs, including higher freight rates and metal prices after the U.S. placed tariffs on Chinese imports earlier this year.

“There is some broad-based push on input costs that have kind of come in and affected ours and many other industries as well,” Mr. Quincey said. He expects the company’s bottlers and retailers to pass along the higher prices to consumers.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/coca-cola-gets-lift-from-trademark-drinks-1532519083

[budkin]

1. "Get me a Coke!"

MAGA

[BigmanPigman]

2. It is just the beginning too.

Will the average American understand the source of higher prices on food, houses, cars, etc? What if Dems get into office when the higher prices really start taking their toll on everyone's wallet, will the voters blame them? No one gave Obama credit for saving us from the Great Recession.

[dalton99a]

3. Yep, everything will go up except their wages

[unblock]

4. where's the guy who said soup prices would barely go up?

ah, but the metal in soda cans....

[mahatmakanejeeves]

5. If I drank it, I'd protest by stopping. NT

[Aristus]

6. There may actually be a salutary effect to this.

Decades ago, sodas and other beverages were sweetened with cane sugar, which is relatively expensive. Consequently, soda was relatively expensive, so it was often reserved for special occasions. I know we never kept it around the house when I was a kid. I might be lucky enough to have it at a restaurant (but only if I had had milk sometime that day) or after a Little League game, but that was it.

In the mid-80's, they started sweetening soda with High Fructose Corn Syrup, which is very cheap. Consequently soda became very cheap. All of a sudden, you walk into a grocery store, and there is row after row after row of huge bottles of soda, they start offering it in dispensing machines in schools, mothers are giving it to their kids at mealtimes, and that's when the obesity epidemic started in this country.

Maybe higher-priced soda will help ease childhood obesity a little...