Drinkers left holding the bottle

Press, 3 August 1981, Page 1

Drinkers left holding the bottle

Sport-soft drinks have left a bad taste in the mouths of buyers who cannot get rid of the empty bottles. Sport is an Auckland company, but the drinks were manufactured, under licence, in Christchurch, and sold by Door-Step Soft Drinks, which was managed by Mr B. J. Marshall, of Rangiora. Mr Marshall was the manager of Maunders Cordials, Ltd, Rangiora, before that firm closed early last year. Sport drinks were bottled by Southern Bottlers, Ltd. “What do we do with the empty bottles?” some customers have asked “The

Press." When this question was put to Sport in Auckland, the marketing manager, Mr E. P. Mondy, said: “There’s not a lot we can do about it, frankly.” He said that originally Maunders used the Sport brand name because the Sport bottle suited it, and it enabled Maunders to use the same concentrate source. Sport (Auckland) would not want to take any bottles back unless there was a big quantity, and an “equitable” price could be arranged with the seller. Even then, it would be very expensive to “freight them 1000 miles,” he said. The .manager of Southern Bottlers, Ltd, Mr C. B.

Hastwell, said that his company was not obliged to take Sport bottles, because it had not received the deposit paid when a customer bought a bottle of Sport soft drink. When the bottle is emptied, the customer is entitled to claim his deposit when the bottle is returned. Mr Hastwell said that Sport in Christchurch had accepted the deposit, and so would be liable to return it if the bottles were returned. That opinion was shared by Mr J. Gowland, a former manager of Maunders Cordials. “When I joined the company in 1961, it had just finished a legal case against Wright and Company, a soft drink manufacturer,” he said.

Maunders held quantities of Wright's bottles, and claimed that the latter had to return the deposits. The Soft Drink Manufacturers’ Association paid the costs for the case, which it regarded as a test. Maunders won, and although Wright and Company had gone out of business, it had to refund the deposits. On Saturday Mr Marshall said that he would not answer any questions, but he said that Door-Step Soft Drinks was being “wound up.” . In an attempt to pay off creditors, he was trying to sell 11.000 dozen bottles and thousands of dollars worth of

soft drinK manutacturing equipment. There had been several inquiries about the bottles and equipment, he said, and negotiations were continuing. Mr Marshall's advice to the owners of the empty Sport bottles is: “Hang on to them; the bottle dealers will probably be screaming out for them soon.” He said that he did not consider he was obliged to accept what he estimated to be about 400 dozen bottles still in the community, because there had been an advertised amnesty at the end of April. For two weeks, people were able to return their

bottles to the Sturrocks Road factory, and the full deposit was repaid. Mr Marshall said he was not sure just how many were returned, or how much he paid out — “probably thousands of dollars.” Several hundred crates of bottles are still outside the factory. “We can't pay out now anyway,” he said, “we have no money to do so. Our creditors have not been paid either." The remaining bottles were “not worth worrying about,” he said. "I realise the problem. People have been chasing me everywhere. It is bloody annoying.” said Mr Marshall.