Soft drink bottlers get/were awarded an exclusive franchise for a geographical territory to sell the brands which they have...the franchises are typically counties or regions; although Tarpon Springs Florida had it's own Coca-Cola bottler for a long time (IDK if it is still in existence). All bottlers don't have to package all sizes...they can buy specific package sizes from one another to fill out their lines. If a national chain (WalMart/...) deals with "corporate", corporate has to pay a toll (in essence) to the local bottler to keep everyone happy (of course, the local bottler supplies WalMart). Same thing happens with Mexican soft drinks...generally (for the chains) those are deals done at corporate, and a small toll gets passed to the local bottler. Dublin Dr. Pepper contended that their use of a sugar formula created a differentiation which didn't cause them to infringe on the other bottlers...Dr Pepper/Snapple disagreed and they ended up settling so that Dublin Dr Pepper couldn't sell outside their area.