Pouring Rights means the right to make available, sell, dispense and serve beverages at a school, college or university, which right may or may not be to the exclusion of other beverage vendors, and to identify the holder of such right as the “official” provider of such beverage at the school, college or university.
The Healthy People 2010 objectives called for meals and snacks served in schools to contribute to overall diets that meet federal dietary guidelines. Sales in schools of foods and drinks high in calories and low in nutrients undermine this health objective, as well as participation in the more nutritious, federally sponsored, school lunch programs. Competitive foods also undermine nutrition information taught in the classroom. Lucrative contracts between school districts and soft drink companies for exclusive rights to sell one brand are the latest development in the increasing commercialization of school food. These contracts, intended to elicit brand loyalty among young children who have a lifetime of purchases ahead of them, are especially questionable because they place schools in the position of “pushing” soft drink consumption. “Pouring rights” contracts deserve attention from public health professionals concerned about the nutritional quality of children’s diets.
Under the existing 10-year contract, Coca-Cola paid the district (Rockford, Illinois school district) $4 million upfront and an additional $350,000 a year to sell its beverages in schools. The annual payments have funded field trips, gym uniforms, SMART Boards and other frills that individual school budgets may not otherwise have afforded.
Source: https://www.motherjones.com/food/2012/08/schools-limit-campus-junk-food-have-lower-obesity-rates/
Extracts from Marion Nestle’s ‘Food Politics’
“Senator Leahy introduced a new bill to require the USDA to ban or limit the sale of soft drinks and other competitive “junk foods” before the end of the lunch period on the basis that “schoolchildren are a captive market for soda vendors . . . [and] our kids pay the price when we give soft drink companies free reign to market their products in school.” In Minnesota, a state senator introduced a bill to ban sales of soda pop while school is in session, but it “failed in the committee BIG TIME” under pressure from lobbyists for soft drink companies and school boards.”
“Congressional reluctance to favor children’s health above the rights of soft drink producers is a direct result of election laws that require legislators to obtain corporate funding for their campaigns. Like most corporations, soft drink companies donate funds to local and national candidates. More rational campaign financing laws might permit Congress to take positions based on public good rather than private greed.”
‘Pouring-rights agreements clearly teach students that school officials are willing to compromise nutritional principles for financial reasons, even when the linking of payments to higher-consumption goals puts them in the position of advocates for soft drink consumption. When a school administrator tells a reporter that “the nutrition aspect is important, but I’m ambivalent about it,” he reveals his priorities; such ambivalence contributes to student attitudes that nutrition and health are not important concerns. All too rare is the school administrator who is brave enough to say, “Matters involving money properly stop at the schoolhouse door” or to insist that “education and marketing are like oil and water.’
“As a side issue, it should be noted that pouring-rights contracts have economic implications beyond school meal service. Because they affect the sales of milk, the contracts also affect the livelihood of community dairy farmers. Milk used to be the only beverage provided to schoolchildren. Once sodas were permitted, milk sales declined. As shown in Table 24, this change has contributed to the overall decline in the annual production of milk in the United States from 31 gallons per capita in 1970 to 24 gallons in 1997.”
“On this precise issue, the administrator of an Ohio school district with a new PepsiCo contract wrote, ‘We have worried about whether we’re forcing students to pay for their education through the purchase of soft drinks. In the end, though, we have decided that is not the case, because each student has the option to buy or not to buy. . . . Americans drink 13.15 billion gallons of carbonated drinks every year—which means somebody is making a lot of money. Why shouldn’t schools get their share? In the end, everyone wins: the students, the schools, the community. And for once, even taxpayers get a break.'”
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Articles
OCT 30, 2019: CU’s Pouring Rights Contract with Pepsi Pushes Out Local Brands
AUG 2019: Why UC Berkeley needs to reevaluate its pouring rights contract with PepsiCo
SEPT 19, 2o18 Soda company pouring rights contracts: exposed!
JUN 19, 2017: POURING RIGHTS CONTRACTS: BIG SODA’S INFILTRATION OF PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES
2015: San Francisco State University Pouring Rights Contract Fizzles After Student Protests
2012: 80 Percent of Public Schools Have Contracts With Coke or Pepsi
2006: Pouring rights contracts and childhood overweight: a critical theory perspective
2000: SOFT DRINK “Pouring Rights”: Marketing Empy Calories
Soda corporations—mainly Coca-Cola and Pepsi—pay big money to be the exclusive thirst-quencher at schools. Those pouring contracts are worth millions to colleges and universities, many of which have seen their budgets slashed in recent years. CU signed a decade-long deal with Pepsi in July 2010 for about $6.5 million, and it’s currently working out the final details of an amendment to extend that contract. (The university declined to reveal any details about the new contract under negotiation.)
It’s a good investment for the soda companies because they’ve got a ripe, captive audience, most of whom are making their own eating and drinking choices for the first time. Whoever gets to them now could have customers for life. It’s a unique and valuable marketing opportunity, one that Pepsi values at about, oh, $650,000 a year.
Source: https://www.5280.com/2019/10/cus-pouring-rights-contract-with-pepsi-pushes-out-local-brands/
Books
Organisations
Sugary drink companies say parents and individuals are responsible for making healthy choices. Yes, it does make sense to cut consumption of sugary drinks — and you can find healthy alternatives here. But the truth is: Big Soda spends millions of dollars pushing their unhealthy products on youth and communities of color.
The Open Truth Campaign is a collaboration between Shape Up San Francisco (project of the Population Health Division of the SFDPH) and The Bigger Picture (Youth Speaks and Center for Vulnerable Populations/UCSF), Alameda County Department of Public Health, Sonoma County Department of Health Services, the American Heart Association Greater Bay Area Division, the Community Engagement and Health Policy Program of the Clinical & Translational Science Institute (CTSI), at UCSF, and the Latino Coalition for a Healthy California.
