Soda Fountain Taps Suck

You see these soda fountains everywhere. Fast food places, mini-marts, restaurants... anywhere you get soda in a cup or glass. Recently I was filling up a cup in a restaurant, just as I had a million times before, but this time I noticed the few droplets that came out after I had pulled my cup away. It was only a few drops, but it happened each time any amount of soda came out, whether it was a full cup's worth or a top off. So it got me thinking, and go with me on this one.

Let's use Subway as the example. There are some assumptions I'm going to make, but I think they're very conservative assumptions. Here they are.

Assume:

• 6 drops come out of the tap after it's stopped pouring, on average, per usage
• Those 6 drops equal 1/2 oz
• Everyone fills their cup to the top, leaves the cup to catch those drops, and then tops it off. So, 6 drops are lost per cup
• 100 cups are filled, on average, at each Subway restaurant
• All cups purchased are the 21oz cups, which cost $1.79 
• All Subways have these soda fountains and costs are consistent

So then we can extrapolate that they lose 50oz per day, which is about 2.4 cups, or about $4.30 worth of soda per day, per store. That's $1,569.50 per store, per year.

According to Subway's website that has a current store counter, they currently have 34,101 stores.

That would mean that Subway loses $53,521,519.50 per year in potential revenue based solely on inefficient soda fountain taps. $53.5M a year. And that's only Subway. Imagine all the other restaurants, like McDonalds, that probably serve up way more that 100 cups a day.

Imagine how much money could be made if they just had leak-proof taps. Patent pending...