Sauced

Jones Soda to Go the Waco Way?

The local soft drink company considers a bid from the Lonestar State.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Dec 22, 2009 at 10:00AM1 Comments

Let me break it down: the boy is Seattle, the groom is Jones, and the bride is Texas. No wait. The groom is Big Red, taking Jones (the bride)away to the Waco compound. The boy is still Seattle. Obviously.

In a Seattle Times article dated December 21st, Melissa Allison wrote that South Lake Union-based soda company Jones Soda is considering a bid from Big Red, a company headquartered in Waco, Texas (that poor town which we will all forever associate with FBI/insane cult people showdowns).

Allison reports that Big Red offered $7.9 million for the company. When you put that in the context of Google’s 500 million dollar bid for Yelp.com—a company that has done little more than convince regular people to provide free content—you learn a valuable 21st century lesson: making things doesn’t pay.

Reports Allison:
Over the past 18 months, Jones has laid off about 75 people in an effort to cut costs and now has about 40 employees.
Last month, it posted a loss of $1.5 million for the third quarter, a 72 percent improvement from a year earlier despite an 18 percent drop in revenue.

Fans of Jones’ tofurky and gravy soda might want to stock up—something tells me we won’t be seeing that again if the bevey company goes to Texas. It’s always sad to see a good-hearted local company go, at least we still have delicious Dry Soda.