Bottlers set sights on secondary schools with new incentives

Schools, with their captive and youthful audience, have always been attractive vending accounts for beverage bottlers. Not only do they contain large numbers of young people who are still developing their consumption habits, they are immune from competition once a service contract is signed.

What's new is the aggressiveness bottlers have shown in the secondary school arena. In years past, bottlers coughed up major bucks for college and university business. But in the last year, according to the Oakland, Calif.-based Center for Commercial Free Public Education, two dozen exclusive contracts have been signed between bottlers and secondary schools.

'It seems like …