Pepsi buys bottler, will cut 14 jobs

Pepsi Bottling Group completed its acquisition of Colorado Springs-based Lane Affiliated Cos. this week and announced it plans to close the local production line in February, eliminating 14 jobs.

Pepsi Bottling spokesman Jeff Dahncke said the company would try to find new jobs for as many of the production workers as possible. Pepsi Bottling will continue to employ about 125 people in the Springs and will still operate Lane's warehouse and distribution facility at 3605 N. Stone Ave., but will now supply the Springs from its Denver production facility.

"There's opportunities for us now that this deal is done to serve our customers more efficiently," Dahncke said. "We'll be able to move that production work, the bulk of it, to our facility in Denver."

Rob King, president for Pepsi Bottling's North American operations, was in the Springs on Wednesday to welcome Lane's employees to the company. Pepsi Bottling Group employs 70,000 people around the world and has annual sales of almost $14 billion. The company said the Lane purchase is the company's biggest acquisition since it went public in 1999.

"We're extremely excited to add Lane to the Pepsi Bottling Group family," Dahncke said.

Pepsi Bottling and Lane announced the sale in September, marking the end of three generations of Lane family ownership of the company. Lane Affiliated, which also operated in New Mexico and Arizona, was Pepsi's eighth-largest bottler in the United States. Terms of the deal were not released.

Lane Affiliated got into the Pepsi business in 1936, when founder Ross Lane added Pepsi to his wholesale tobacco and candy distributorship. Lane Affiliated grew to employ about 600 people at its franchises in the Springs, Las Cruces, N.M., and Tucson and Yuma, Ariz.