Pepsico

Sunsweet Growers Inc. has backed out of plans to buy Pepsico's bottling plant in Oxford because the borough does not have adequate sewage treatment capacity, the company said on Tuesday. The Yuba City, Calif., prune juice manufacturer had secured $12 million in tax-exempt, low-interest financing to buy and renovate the plant, which Pepsico abandoned in November, when it acquired the Unibev Corp., an independent bottler. Sunsweet, a cooperative of 650 plum growers, planned to employ about 200 workers at the plant, which would have created about $130,000 per year in taxes for the borough.

Pepsi to Madonna: You're outta here. After signing a reported $5 million sponsorship pact with Madonna Louise Ciccone, and after broadcasting the singer's ballyhooed two-minute "Like a Prayer" Pepsi commercial only twice in this country, the soda pop and the pop star have struck a disharmonious chord. Pepsico Inc. has abandoned plans to run shortened versions of the ad featuring the music superstar and her Top 10 single "Like a Prayer. " The company acceded to pressure from the Rev. Donald Wildmon, a Mississippi Methodist who heads the 380,000-member American Family Association; Bishop Rene Gracida of Corpus Christi, Texas, and other conservative Christian leaders who urged parishioners to boycott the soft drink.

Commodore International Ltd. yesterday named a new president, Mehdi Ali, who has been a managing director of Dillon, Read & Co., Commodore's investment bank. Ali, 43, a Commodore director since August, has served as a "special adviser" to the West Chester computer company for three years, during which the firm has staged a dramatic upturn. Ali will be Commodore's first president since 1987, when company chairman Irving Gould assumed the post. Gould will remain chief executive officer.

General Cinema Corp. said yesterday it agreed to sell its soft-drink bottling business to PepsiCo Inc. for $1.75 billion in cash. The company said it would have an after-tax profit of more than $1.1 billion on the sale. But General Cinema said it also will have to pay about $600 million in taxes on the sale. General Cinema had agreed last year to sell the unit, which is the largest independent Pepsi bottler in the United States, to PepsiCo. The deal was scuttled because of tax concerns.

General Cinema Corp. plans to sell its Pepsi-Cola bottling subsidiary to PepsiCo Inc. for $1.5 billion in notes by the end of this month, the companies announced yesterday. The sale would be virtually tax-free until the principal is retired in a single payment in 20 years because, for tax purposes, it will be treated as an installment purchase, said Peter Farwell, spokesman for General Cinema of Chestnut Hill, Mass. "We have built and managed one of the most profitable soft-drink bottling operations in the industry," said Richard Smith, General Cinema's chairman and chief executive.

Arthur J. Winslow, 67, of Downingtown, died Sept. 12 of heart failure at Chester County Hospital, West Chester. Born in Brewer, Maine, Mr. Winslow worked for 40 years for Pepsico Inc. before retiring in 1986. Mr. Winslow worked as a district manager for Pepsi in Purchase, N.Y., until 1973, when he was named general manager of the Pepsi bottling plant in Wilkes- Barre. He left the company in 1976 and opened Pie Pantry, a bakery in Wilkes-Barre. He operated the business until 1979, when he moved to Downingtown to return to work for Pepsi as director of management training in West Chester.

Wilson Sporting Goods Co. retains the usual stable of pro athletes to endorse its products. But in the company's new marketing campaign, scheduled to begin in February, there are no grinning baseball stars lauding the feel of a mitt or tanned golfers boasting about the driving range of balls. Wilson's stories are of disappointments. And success. Basic black-and-white ads with absolutely no people show: A stark high school football field in Columbia, Miss., that's empty except for a Wilson football.

The Bunting Friendship Freedom House in Darby opened a youth center in October. A $10,000 grant from the Pepsi-Cola Distributing Co. of the Delaware Valley in West Chester enabled the center to furnish and light its new center. "They have been great," said Ethel Smiley, Freedom House founder and executive director. "They have been supportive of all our programs. " The grant was part of a $350,000 corporate giveaway program initiated last year by PepsiCo Inc., through its 350 local bottlers and distributors nationwide.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Leroy S. Zimmerman, in an antitrust suit filed yesterday against PepsiCo and two of its central Pennsylvania bottlers, said the giant soft-drink company was using fines and boycotts to prevent price competition in the sale of its products. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Harrisburg, accuses PepsiCo Inc. of Purchase, N.Y., Allegheny Pepsi Bottling Co. Inc., of Harrisburg, and Confair Bottling Co. Inc. of Williamsport, of imposing fines and staging boycotts against retailers who buy Pepsi products from anyone but their local bottler.

Wendy's International Corp. yesterday said it was making a $1.6 billion switch from Pepsi to Coke at its fast-food restaurants, ending a 17-year relationship with PepsiCo Inc. Wendy's said it was dropping Pepsi products from the menu at its company- owned outlets because PepsiCo's push into the restaurant business has made the soft-drink company a competitor of Wendy's. "They, in effect, are a competitor of ours, and that is a conflict we just cannot stand," said Paul Raab, a spokesman for Wendy's.