TANNARA YELLAND
Associate News Editor

After being the exclusive cold beverage provider on campus for 12 years, Coca-Cola’s contract with the University of Saskatchewan has expired.

The company had provided $200,000 per year over the original 10 years of the contract to the U of S, from 1998 to 2008. When the university failed to sell the agreed-upon 150,000 cases of drinks, the contract was extended for two years with no additional funding.

“We’re at the point of now saying, ”˜Do we want another exclusive arrangement?’ ” said Heather Magotiaux, U of S vice-president university advancement. “It’s a question that ultimately will be answered by the university board of governors.”

Most of the cumulative $2 million that Coca-Cola provided went to student services, library acquisitions, funding for the students’ union and scholarships and bursaries. For the past two years the university’s operating budget has covered the shortfall from the contract, but Magotiaux says it “remains to be seen” how the university would deal with this in the long term without a new exclusive agreement.

The funding Coca-Cola has provided for the U of S is undoubtedly one of the biggest concerns for administrators in trying to decide a new course for the school’s beverage distribution. But Magotiaux insisted that students’ opinion will also be an important factor.

There was consultation with the U of S Students’ Union leading up to the 1998 agreement, Magotiaux said, but there was still significant disappointment once the agreement was enacted. Magotiaux, while hesitant to speak for people she did not know, chalked most of this disappointment up to the fact that students’ choice was taken away.

Despite this, pursuing another exclusive agreement, either with Coca-Cola or with its main competitor, Pepsi, is one of the options on the table. To give students more input into the decision, a website has been set up where students can comment.

In sending a recommendation to the board of governors, the Cold Beverage Steering Committee will have to review, among other things, the nature of the companies it is considering. Magotiaux was clear that the committee would disclose to the board any findings it might unearth regarding Coca-Cola’s alleged human rights abuses and environmental infractions, though she was not as clear about whether there were any plans to inform students about these issues in the event that a new exclusive arrangement is agreed upon. She insisted that the university is “pretty open about the arrangements” it enters into.

Magotiaux says there is no set timeline for when the committee hopes to send its recommendations to the board, which meets only six times per year. The next meetings are in June and July, and after that there is no meeting until “sometime in the fall.”

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photo: Roadside Pictures