Beverage formulation
Recipe development, reformulation, and pilot batches — including moving a concept from a home kitchen to something that survives a production line.
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Detroit’s beverage company since 1980
We started with one truck. Four decades later we own the brands, run the plant, load the trucks, and drive the routes.
Who we are
Vertically integrated, on purpose
Intrastate Distributors, Inc. is a family of operations that most beverage companies split across three or four vendors. We formulate and bottle at one Detroit facility. We warehouse and pick at another. Our own drivers run the routes that put the cases on the shelf.
That structure exists because of how the company grew. IDI started in 1980 as a carrier — moving beverages other people made. Doing that well, for long enough, taught us exactly where the beverage business breaks: not in the recipe, but in the gap between a finished pallet and a store that will actually stock it.
So we closed the gap. Today IDI owns three brands with genuine history, produces them in-house, and rents the same capability out to brands that need it.
1980
Founded in Detroit
Family-run beverage operations on the city’s east side since 1980.
172,000 sq ft
Manufacturing & bottling
Dedicated production floor for house brands and co-pack partners.
315,000 sq ft
Distribution center
Opened January 2010 to consolidate direct-store-delivery operations.
1,800+
SKUs distributed
Beverages, snacks, and coolers moving through Southeast Michigan routes.
Capabilities
What IDI actually does
Six functions, one company. You can use any one of them, or all of them.
Manufacturing & bottling
Carbonated soft drinks, sparkling and still water, teas, and lemonades in glass, PET, and cans.
Co-packing
Contract production for outside brands. We have run White Rock, Faygo, Boylan’s, and BAWLS on our lines.
Private label
Retailer and operator brands built end to end — formulation, packaging, artwork coordination, and production.
Direct-store-delivery
Company trucks and drivers on fixed routes, not a third-party freight handoff. Retail, convenience, schools, and vending.
Market access
Established retail relationships across metro Detroit — the part most new beverage brands underestimate.
Our journey
How a trucking company ended up owning a 1919 soda brand
The through-line is simple: every step was about controlling one more piece of getting a drink from an idea to somebody's hand.
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1980
One truck
Intrastate Distributors begins hauling beverages in Detroit with a single truck and a route book.
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1990s–2000s
From carrier to manufacturer
The route business grows into production. IDI moves from moving other people’s product to formulating and bottling its own, and takes on contract packing for outside brands.
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2009
Kist and Frostie come home
IDI acquires the Kist and Frostie brands from Leading Edge Brands — two names with heritage back to 1919 and 1939 — and brings their production to Detroit.
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January 2010
A building for the routes
A 315,000 sq ft distribution center opens to consolidate direct-store-delivery, letting the 172,000 sq ft plant focus entirely on production.
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Today
1,800 SKUs and counting
IDI runs house brands, co-pack programs, and a full distributed portfolio across Southeast Michigan — retail, convenience, schools, and vending.
House brands
The brands we own
Between them, Towne Club, Kist, and Frostie carry more than a century and a half of beverage history.
Detroit, mid-1960s
Towne Club
The Detroit pop that families bought by the wooden case. Still made with pure cane sugar, still bottled in glass.
Read the story
Chicago, 1929Kist
One of America’s first fruit sodas, reborn in Detroit as a clean, zero-sugar sparkling water.
Read the story
Catonsville, Maryland, 1939Frostie
A genuine American root beer with an origin story you could not invent — and a craft soda line that grew out of it.
Read the story
Working with us
Three ways in
You have a beverage. We formulate, bottle, and package it — short runs included. Co-packing
You have a store. We stock it, on our own trucks, on a route that already runs past your door. Talk to sales
You just want a Towne Club. Fair enough. Where to buy
Talk to a person
Sales, distribution, and partnership questions all start on the same line. No portal, no ticket queue.
Monday – Friday, 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM ET
Let’s build something worth drinking.
Co-packing, private label, or getting our brands onto your shelves — start with a conversation.