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ENTREPRENEURS
- June 2001 by Claude Hammond Small and Sweet
While the corporate giants vie for percentage points of market share, Greensburg Bottling relies on the faithful (some would say fanatical) following it has in its market area. In Kentucky, Ski and Double Cola are only sold in an area consisting mostly of the counties straddling I-65 from the Tennessee line up to Elizabethtown and Shepherdsville. Joe DeSpain, Greensburg Bottling’s president, runs the company with his brothers David and James. “We all run this company together,” he said. “I just hold the president’s title because somebody has to stay in the office and answer the phone.” Greensburg Bottling Company is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year. DeSpain’s father, Jodie, purchased the company in 1961 and worked there until health problems brought about his retirement in 1991. Joe DeSpain has numerous stories illustrating the intense devotion inspired by his company’s products. “We’ve shipped cases of Double Cola and Ski to servicemen and women in places like Saudi Arabia and Bosnia,” he said. “But our products deserve this attention. Double Cola is simply the best cola on the market. It’s not too sweet and it doesn’t leave an aftertaste. You can drink it with anything because it enhances, rather than dominates, the taste of the food. “Ski is a fruit-based drink. We use real orange and lemon juice in its manufacture. It has more body and depth than other citrus drinks and is truly unique.” Greensburg Bottling is one of only two soft drink makers in Kentucky that still uses returnable bottles. Quite possibly it is the only soft drink manufacturer in the country that still has direct factory-to-home delivery of its product. “I just got an e-mail order from a guy in Horse Cave who needs three cases of Ski, so we’ll get it to him,” DeSpain said. The company president recalled a typical story about a devotee of his company’s products. “The son of a friend of mine works in a hospital in North Carolina. Whenever he visited his family here, he used to take back a case or so of Double Cola and Ski. “When he was taking a break at work, his co-workers noticed that he was drinking Double Cola, which they had never seen before. ‘I have more in the cooler, help yourself,’ he told them. They all liked what they tasted, so now he has to tell them every time he plans to come back to Kentucky. His co-workers all give him money and he loads his car up with cases of Double Cola and Ski for his return to North Carolina.” Ski was immortalized by the Kentucky Headhunters’ song, “Dumas Walker,” from their Grammy-winning first album. “That created a tremendous amount of excitement here. Two of the boys in that group are from Metcalfe County, where Ski has a strong following,” DeSpain said. “People who have heard that song, but who aren’t familiar with the soft drink often think the group is referring to whiskey.” Ski and Double Cola have a following wherever people from South Central Kentucky have migrated and work. This includes the halls of power in Washington D.C. Staff members of U.S. Rep. Ron Lewis, whose legislative district includes Greensburg, have been known to drink soda pop from their home state. “I really like Ski,” said Cathy Redding, Lewis’s press secretary. “My brother Aaron especially enjoys Ski – he can get a bottle of it a lot easier than I can. He lives in New Haven, in Larue County.” Greensburg Bottling makes diet versions of both Double Cola and Ski and a caffeine-free version of Ski will be introduced this month. There’s also Cherry Ski. “The Pepsi folks said there would never be a cherry Mountain Dew,” said DeSpain. “But after we came out with Cherry Ski, they introduced Code Red.” Most of the soft drinks produced in Greensburg are also available in cans and plastic bottles, as well as the more traditional returnable bottles. In addition, the company bottles or distributes other beverages, including Nesbitt’s Orange, Nesbitt’s Strawberry, NuGrape, Dad’s Root Beer, Tasty Chocolate, Arizona Tea and water. Their major water products come from another family-owned Kentucky supplier, Highbridge Springs, in Jessamine County. The
company’s website is: www.doublecolaski.com Claude
Hammond is editorial director of The Lane Report. |
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Copyright 1996-2001, by Kentucky Business Online. All rights reserved. Editorial
content is copyright 2001, Lane Communications Group The Lane Report is a trademark of Lane Communications Group. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. |
In this age, when
immense multinational corporations produce most of the
world’s soft drinks, the Greensburg Bottling Company
stands as an anomaly. The small company, a Double Cola
franchise, is owned by the DeSpain family. The company
has about 30 full- and part-time employees producing
Double Cola and Ski, which are sold in just 20 counties
in South Central Kentucky.