Amid a campaign to persuade university administrators to ban Coca-Cola products, CUNY has given Coke’s main rival, Pepsi-Cola, the exclusive right to distribute nonalcoholic beverages on all 24 of its campuses.
The contract, CUNY’s first systemwide deal with a beverage company, calls for Pepsi to pay about $21 million over 10 years, said Michael Arena, a spokesman for the university.
Almost all of that money will be shared with each of the schools, based on consumption on its campus, Mr. Arena said. But about $300,000 will go toward athletic events, and an additional $200,000 toward sustainability initiatives, he said.
Coca-Cola’s presence on college campuses, including some of the CUNY schools, has been a contentious issue for several years.
In 2005, New York University banned Coke products from its campus for four years after students protested because of reports of the company’s complicity in the murder of union leaders in Colombia.
Citing that episode and complaints of discrimination by people who worked for the company in New York City, an anti-Coke campaign based in Brooklyn, the Campaign to Stop Killer Coke, pressed CUNY officials to take similar action.
A few campuses, including CUNY’s law school in Queens, banned Coke.
In May, the student senate at Brooklyn College passed a resolution to ban Coke there, said David J. Rosenberg, the president of the student government on that campus.
“The real drive behind that resolution was that we don’t do business with corporations that have issues with human rights and workers’ rights,” Mr. Rosenberg said.
Coke was paying Brooklyn College $60,000 a year through three years of a five-year contract, he said, but that deal was superseded by the new Pepsi contract.
Ray Rogers, the director of the campaign against Coke, claimed victory in the CUNY decision, likening it to a switch to Pepsi from Coke at Rutgers University amid student protests in 2005.
But as Rutgers officials did then, CUNY officials attributed their switch to a better offer from Pepsi.
Pepsi “offered more money” and more forms of promotional support to CUNY than Coke did, Mr. Arena said. “Their proposal offered a variety of products and a level of support and a total royalty number that was superior,” he said.
Mr. Rogers said losing out at CUNY would be a blow to Coke because the university was one of the biggest in the country. CUNY has about 270,000 students seeking degrees on campuses of varying sizes, including Hunter College, City College of New York and the College of Staten Island. It has about an equal number of students in continuing education and adult courses, and about 40,000 faculty and staff members — a total audience of more than half a million people.
The 10-year contract CUNY signed with Pepsi last month gives the company exclusive rights to provide soft drinks and bottled water, in cafeterias and vending machines, on all of the campuses, Mr. Arena said. He said it grew out of an initiative begun last year to maximize revenue from vendors.
“There was a sense that there were certain areas that were ripe for leveraging the buying power across the university,” Mr. Arena said.
That is proving out, he said, because the university expects to receive $1.4 million more from Pepsi in the first year than it would have otherwise.
The university issued a request for proposals for the beverage business, he said. By spring, the bidding had boiled down to a competition between Coke and Pepsi, and Pepsi’s best and final offer was more attractive, Mr. Arena said.
He declined to say how much Coke had bid.
Coca-Cola did not respond to requests for comment on Tuesday.
Signs of the change were evident on CUNY campuses this week. At the Graduate Center, across Fifth Avenue from the Empire State Building, the only soft-drink machine in a first-floor lounge was an empty dispenser marked with the logo of Aquafina, a bottled water distributed by Pepsi.
At Brooklyn College, the Coke machines in the student union have gone unfilled for weeks, Mr. Rosenberg said.
The Pepsi machines that will replace them are due to be delivered before the fall term starts in a few weeks, he said.
In the interim, he said, the campus has coped with a caffeine deficiency.
“Students have been a little bit unnerved about the lack of soda on campus,” Mr. Rosenberg said. “There are a couple of bodegas around the corner where people are getting their fix.”
The contract, CUNY’s first systemwide deal with a beverage company, calls for Pepsi to pay about $21 million over 10 years, said Michael Arena, a spokesman for the university.
Almost all of that money will be shared with each of the schools, based on consumption on its campus, Mr. Arena said. But about $300,000 will go toward athletic events, and an additional $200,000 toward sustainability initiatives, he said.
Coca-Cola’s presence on college campuses, including some of the CUNY schools, has been a contentious issue for several years.
In 2005, New York University banned Coke products from its campus for four years after students protested because of reports of the company’s complicity in the murder of union leaders in Colombia.
Citing that episode and complaints of discrimination by people who worked for the company in New York City, an anti-Coke campaign based in Brooklyn, the Campaign to Stop Killer Coke, pressed CUNY officials to take similar action.
A few campuses, including CUNY’s law school in Queens, banned Coke.
In May, the student senate at Brooklyn College passed a resolution to ban Coke there, said David J. Rosenberg, the president of the student government on that campus.
“The real drive behind that resolution was that we don’t do business with corporations that have issues with human rights and workers’ rights,” Mr. Rosenberg said.
Coke was paying Brooklyn College $60,000 a year through three years of a five-year contract, he said, but that deal was superseded by the new Pepsi contract.
Ray Rogers, the director of the campaign against Coke, claimed victory in the CUNY decision, likening it to a switch to Pepsi from Coke at Rutgers University amid student protests in 2005.
But as Rutgers officials did then, CUNY officials attributed their switch to a better offer from Pepsi.
Pepsi “offered more money” and more forms of promotional support to CUNY than Coke did, Mr. Arena said. “Their proposal offered a variety of products and a level of support and a total royalty number that was superior,” he said.
Mr. Rogers said losing out at CUNY would be a blow to Coke because the university was one of the biggest in the country. CUNY has about 270,000 students seeking degrees on campuses of varying sizes, including Hunter College, City College of New York and the College of Staten Island. It has about an equal number of students in continuing education and adult courses, and about 40,000 faculty and staff members — a total audience of more than half a million people.
The 10-year contract CUNY signed with Pepsi last month gives the company exclusive rights to provide soft drinks and bottled water, in cafeterias and vending machines, on all of the campuses, Mr. Arena said. He said it grew out of an initiative begun last year to maximize revenue from vendors.
“There was a sense that there were certain areas that were ripe for leveraging the buying power across the university,” Mr. Arena said.
That is proving out, he said, because the university expects to receive $1.4 million more from Pepsi in the first year than it would have otherwise.
The university issued a request for proposals for the beverage business, he said. By spring, the bidding had boiled down to a competition between Coke and Pepsi, and Pepsi’s best and final offer was more attractive, Mr. Arena said.
He declined to say how much Coke had bid.
Coca-Cola did not respond to requests for comment on Tuesday.
Signs of the change were evident on CUNY campuses this week. At the Graduate Center, across Fifth Avenue from the Empire State Building, the only soft-drink machine in a first-floor lounge was an empty dispenser marked with the logo of Aquafina, a bottled water distributed by Pepsi.
At Brooklyn College, the Coke machines in the student union have gone unfilled for weeks, Mr. Rosenberg said.
The Pepsi machines that will replace them are due to be delivered before the fall term starts in a few weeks, he said.
In the interim, he said, the campus has coped with a caffeine deficiency.
“Students have been a little bit unnerved about the lack of soda on campus,” Mr. Rosenberg said. “There are a couple of bodegas around the corner where people are getting their fix.”
