From glass to plastic — and the centralisation of manufacturing (1968)

What centralising by breaking vested interests left behind

The heart of this decision lay in a choice between protecting the take of one’s own people and rebuilding the mechanism itself. What Matsuzono took on was not a mere change of packaging material. It was an attempt to rearrange, in one move, a delivery system premised on collecting glass bottles and the vested interests of the regional bottling plants that hung from it. That he pushed the plan through even after a vote to expel him, at the cost of losing a quarter of all franchised operators, shows the weight of the decision. Moving a vested interest that efficiency figures alone cannot move, and accepting that some will fall away — that is where the character of the later centralised head office shows itself.

At the same time, it should not be missed that the next problem appeared the moment centralisation was complete. By 1973, when the concentrate plants had finally been gathered in, the domestic market for the flagship product was already showing signs of a ceiling. Precisely because head office had taken the initiative, the question became what to use that initiative for — the “restoration of power” was an end point and, equally, a starting point that left diversification and overseas expansion still to be solved. The path by which the same integrating logic that bound up the scattered regions would be carried over into transplanting the door-to-door network abroad lies on the extension of this container revolution.