Pepsi Bottling Group (NYSE: PBG), a competitive colleague of Coca-Cola Enterprises (NYSE: CCE), reported earnings for the third quarter earlier in the week. I didn't find the release too exciting, to be honest. Revenues went up 2% to $3.8 billion. Earnings came in at $1.06 per share. In last year's quarter, Pepsi Bottling Group booked a bottom line equal to 98 cents per share, after adjustments. In terms of expectations, the company beat the analysts on Wall Street by two pennies better.

While an earnings beat is certainly a nice thing, let's take a look at what is perhaps one of the more important metrics when it comes to beverage manufacturers: case volume. I'm afraid there's nothing to write home about as far as this statistic is concerned. Case volume took a dive around the globe by a disappointing 6%. Management cited hard economic times as a contributing factor. Imagine that. You'd think that products found in the portfolios of Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO) and PepsiCo (NYSE: PEP) would be pretty defensive in a tough economic period. Apparently, Pepsi Bottling Group found it difficult to distribute more of its drinks this past quarter.

Long term, I think Pepsi Bottling Group will be okay. But I think both PepsiCo and Coke need to find better ways of convincing people to continue to drink their flagship carbonated beverages. They've been on the decline over the past several years. As a stock, Pepsi Bottling Group isn't on my watch list. I already own shares of Coke, but even with that bias, I can honestly say that I wouldn't want to enter the bottler at this time. I'm not impressed with either the growth or the year-to-date stock performance.

Disclosure: I own Coke; positions can change at any time.