Did Quaker Oats make an error in buying Snapple or did they manage it badly?

Quaker had three main areas of business before buying Snapple which were grin based food, bean based food, pet food and beverages. Snapples sales had grown from $80 million in 1989 to $231 in 1992 and $516 million in 1993 and had a market share of 30%-40% which was more or less stable. In 1992 the company was sold to Thomas .H.Lee Company which subsequently sold it to Quaker Oats for $1.6 billion. The sales revenue at the time of sale in 1994 amounted to $674 million. All the stated facts depict that Snapple was a company with growing sales and the largest market share before it was acquired by Quaker Oats. This indicates that Quaker made a correct decision to buy Snapple since it perfectly fitted with the vision of the company to become a large beverage company. The purchase of Snapple would expand the product base of the company and also help it to increase its market share and volume. Gatorade which was the main product for Quaker had a strong presence in South US and now with the acquiring of Snapples, Quaker would also establish its presence in North East and West Coast. Thus Quaker had all the right reasons to buy the company. Quaker was not able to manage Snapple efficiently. Quaker made the wrong policy decisions like removing the key publicist like Howard Stern and Rush Limbaugh who previously used to promote Snapple on Radio but on removal turned against it and indulged in destructive publicity. Then Quaker went on to impose new distribution network which comprised of eliminating the middlemen and directly delivering to the supermarkets. The company also went to the distributors asking them to stop delivering Snapple to the Supermarkets and instead shift their supply chain to delivering Gatorade. This led to dissatisfaction in the distributors who resented from giving up their accounts. Another important reason for drop in sales of Snapple was Quakers decision to introduce Snapple in Larger Containers and larger varieties .This led to difficulty in exposure of the product in Retail display space and storage in distributor trucks. Quaker treated Snapple like Gatorade and introduced larger packs without analysing that Gatorade was a drunk when the consumer is thirsty and hence big packs were successful whereas Snapple was sold more in small packs rather than big packs. Snapples Sales decline till 1997 and fell to $440 million and was sold to Triarc.