We had free soft drinks in the fridges at one place I worked. Cost-cutting measures were coming and I sent an email to all of engineering (including the VP) asking who wanted to join me in a shopping trip at 10AM to restock the fridge. In the email, I estimated that it would take between 60 and 90 minutes. Two carfuls of engineers left at 10AM sharp and returned a little before noon and restocked the fridges.

That was the first and last time we had to do it, as the soft drinks returned the following week.

I imagine management realized it was far cheaper to buy some soda than it was to lose 2 hours of work from multiple engineers

That was exactly the point of the protest that was couched as totally-not-a-protest.

(I skipped clarifying in the GP post that they took the soft drinks out of the fridge and emailed the new policy, rather than merely being a little slow in restocking.)

See also: removing coffee machines.

Too many forget that it's one of the few legal ways to supply your employees with performance enhancing drugs.

Air quality (reduced CO2 or increased O2) is a proven performance enhancer and also legal but almost always neglected. Not sure why tho!