Our History

The history of Copán Dry begins in 1945 in Santa Rosa de Copán, a picturesque town in western Honduras. In that year don Ricardo Pineda Tábora, a maker of cornstarch, entered into a partnership with doña Lastenia Arias de Bueso, mother of Honduran banker Jorge Bueso Arias and owner of a soft drink bottling machine. The association, under the enthusiastic direction of don Ricardo, flourished to the extent that he bought the machinery from doña Lastenia two short years later.

Under the original partnership, the soft drinks were offered to the public under various names: "Refrescos Alba", "La Frescura del Alba", and "La Abeja". Upon purchasing the machinery, don Ricardo changed the name of the company to Copán Industrial, a name which has remained to this day. As to the name of his product, he reasoned "If there is a soft drink named Canada Dry, why not one named Copán Dry?"

In that time the customary size of soft drinks in Honduras was seven ounces, and ours was no exception. With the passage of time the mass market has since standardized on the 12 ounce size, but faithful to our local customers' preferences, we continue to produce our flagship seven ounce returnable glass bottle. To our knowledge we are the only remaining bottler in Central America that continues to produce this traditional size.

At this time only 30 cases a day were being bottled, using an entirely manual process. With the help of a local bank, an electric bottling machine was purchased from don Federico Yusan, allowing us to increase our production.

In the beginning Copán Industrial operated only with the help of the owner's children. Later the first two employees were hired, and today -- thanks to our customers and their growing demand for our products -- we have the privilege of providing employment to 60 permanent employees.

An anecdote illustrates the importance that don Ricardo always placed on his employees and his community. At one point he was offered labor saving machinery for his cornstarch operation, which he declined, stating that he preferred to continue providing local employment, given that many people were emigrating for lack of work. Don Ricardo's love for Santa Rosa manifested itself to visiting friends when he would pester them to the point of annoyance in his attempts to convince them to stay and help the community.

In 1965 don Ricardo passed away suddenly, obliging his son Juan José Pineda Escalante to abandon his studies and take over the family business, which became an association of Juan José, his brothers, and his mother. Upon taking the reins of the company, "Chepito" Pineda, as he was popularly known, began to innovate and implement new ideas in the family business. His continued success in guiding the company was recognized in 1991 when he was named Distinguished Businessman of the Year by the Honduran Business Council (Consejo Hondureño de la Empresa Privada, COHEP) for his leadership and performance in contributing to the development of Honduras.

Later the business was restructured as Copán Industrial S.A. de C.V., a corporation held by "Chepito", his wife Margarita, and their children José Ricardo, Eloísa, Silvia, Gabriela, and Juan José, each of whom supervises his or her respective department.

At our customers' request, in 2004 we introduced our half liter non-returnable bottle in each of our six traditional flavors. while continuing to produce our flagship seven ounce bottle.

Yet in our history much remains to be written. With many projects underway and with faith in God we look forward to a promising future in which we actively participate in the development of Honduras and our own Santa Rosa de Copán.