Snapple, Education and Nutrition

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Snapple is a product that can be enjoyed in moderation but never something that schools should encourage as a regularly consumed beverage. It has about the same amount of sugar as a can of your favorite soft drink. Even though Snapple’s bottled water is offered in these vending machines along with the four juice flavors, children will most likely choose the juice flavors over a bottle of water without a flavor to satisfy their thirst. Although Snapple is promoting New York City in their advertisements like the commercial mentioned earlier, “Hey, America” from YouTube, New York City is not getting everything they expected from this deal.

Snapple wasn’t as popular as it hoped to be in New York City. Gardiner says “the overall value to the city will drop to $33 million in cash and advertising, and the city will have to boost the amount of advertising it gives to Snapple by $14.5 million.” This is not even close the $126 million that the city was supposed to have received in the deal. They gained less than a quarter of the amount expected by the end of the five agreement. The city wanted to renegotiate their deal with Snapple. Some people believed they shouldn’t renegotiate the deal with Snapple because the commercials and advertisements produced by Snapple do benefit the city by promoting tourism and bringing in some more revenue for New York City. The city is allowed the contract to still stand as it is but any new contracts would need more overview from other councils before being put into action. (Gardiner, Jill)

The fact that the city is only sticking with the Snapple contract to keep promoting tourism into the city shows that this deal should’ve probably never happened in the first place. The city is barely gaining any money from this deal and is still paying the Snapple company a large amount of money to continue their advertisements to promote New York City as a tourist spot. New York City definitely should not do another deal with Snapple. According to Gardiner, New York City only sold fifty thousand cases of the beverage in the first year when they were supposed to sell seven hundred fifty thousand cases (twenty-four bottles in a case). They were also supposed to sell one million drinks but only sold three hundred thirty-three drinks in the vending machines for the five-year agreement. The fact that the number of drinks sold wasn’t even nearly close enough shows that this was not a good deal. Snapple was not a product that New York should have partnered with. It was not known well enough when the agreement was started and it is not a healthy alternative to sodas in the vending machines. It may have brought some revenue into the city but if that is all the city was after, soft drinks most likely would have sold more efficiently because they are well known and can be sold for the same price that they sold the Snapple drinks for.

The fact that this unhealthy drink was all over the city and in the schools makes it harder for children to avoid it anywhere. Everyone understands that soft drinks are an unhealthy drink to consume very often, but not everyone understands that Snapple is not any healthier just because it is a tea or a juice and not an extremely carbonated beverage. Because New York City did not receive very much money from the Snapple deal, they probably did not have enough money to provide new uniforms and equipment for schools. Since they cannot financially make this possible there is no reason for this unhealthy beverage to continue to be sold in a school because children could get this drink pretty much anywhere outside of school. The main point made from these facts is that there is no point in having an unhealthy beverage in schools if it will give no benefit back to the school besides a trigger to child obesity.

Now some may believe the Snapple deal is actually a good thing and that these types of deals should happen more in cities to promote tourism but also the product that’s advertising the city. Mayor Bloomberg said “’This partnership with Snapple will enhance our efforts to promote and market New York City as the premier tourist destination that it is, while at the same time providing the Department of Education with new financial resources’” (qt. in Skyler, Edward). Skyler introduces the elements that go into the Snapple deal. These include “producing and selling four new fruit juices and bottled water in twelve hundred schools’ vending machines, Snapple commissions will go to financially supporting schools, Snapple products will be the official drink of New York City, Snapple will market through the city’s events with sponsorships, and Snapple will advertise its product while also advertising and promoting New York City. The chief marketing officer of New York City at the time, Mr. Perello said “’ This is the start of a select number of really high-quality partnerships” (qt. in Herszenhorn, David M.). The hope is to bring in more corporations that will want to partner with the city to bring in even more revenue then what was expected from Snapple. There was a lot of excitement when this deal was made with the promise of healthier schools with nutritional programs. Most people understood that Snapple may not be the healthiest choice, but it was healthier than soda. “’ I think most nutritionists would say that if you have to drink something that comes in a can, Snapple is probably as good as you can get and they are also vending water,'' Mr. Bloomberg said. ''You have to have something healthy, but you also have to have something that kids want to drink’” (qt. in Herszenhorn, David M.). The mayor also believed that even though the school was becoming healthier, they would still receive as much revenue as in the years past. This deal was also considered a good thing because the Department of Education would be handling everything involving the vending machines and Snapple so the schools could be completely focused on the education of the students attending. Also, the deal was loved because the commissions made off of Snapple products would go to the city and to the schools’ education and athletic programs. Many believed that this deal was great because it would produce revenue for the schools of New York City. There is a lot of positive feedback for this deal and it began becoming a trend in cities like San Diego that gets paid to sell Pepsi products.

People believe that it is great that Snapple commissions are going to go to the schools that are involved in the Snapple deal to promote healthy nutrition and athletics along with education, but even the article by Herszenhorn that supports the Snapple deal with New York City says that Snapple is an unhealthy drink because of the sugar in it. Herszenhorn says “Even though Snapple plans to sell 100 percent juice drinks,