Back when I was growing up on my grandparents’ farm out on the prairie, whenever I was exhausted from a long day of playing professional sports I simply went to the Gatorade well and pulled up a bucketful of natural Gatorade. Nothing like it! Straight from the earth! That’s not true, but there was a “natural” line of Gatorade that PepsiCo has now decided just isn’t working. [More]
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FDA Gives OK To New Coca-Cola-Backed Sweetener That Claims To Taste More Like Sugar
By 12.30.13
Because we all want sweet things but don’t want to accept that eating too many sweet things can make us fat, the world’s largest producer of stevia says it has gotten the go-ahead from the Food and Drug Administration to start using a new version of the sweetener that it developed with the folks at Coca-Cola. [More]
The Thought Of Dorito-Covered Hot Wings Convinces Buffalo Wild Wings To Switch From Coke To Pepsi
By 12.12.13
Restaurant chain Buffalo Wild Wings is ditching Coca-Cola as its soft drink supplier and switching to Pepsi. But what’s most fascinating about this change is how the folks at PepsiCo convinced BWW to jump ship. [More]
PepsiCo Thinks Its Drinks Aren’t Smelly Enough, Wants To Add Scent Capsules
By 9.17.13
Have you ever cracked open a bottle of Tropicana orange juice and thought to yourself, “I would drink so much more of this juice if it smelled even more orange-y”? Probably not, but the folks at PepsiCo are seeking to patent technology that would arouse the customer’s sense of smell from the moment the container is opened. [More]
Pepsi Scolded For Continued Use Of Controversial Caramel Coloring Considered A Carcinogen In California
By 7.3.13
A couple years back, the state of California declared that a caramel coloring agent, 4-methylimidazole (or 4-MEI), was a carcinogen and said that any beverages containing certain levels of 4-MEI would have to carry a warning label. With the most populous state in the nation effectively telling them to find another coloring agent, both Coca-Cola and Pepsi promised to change their respective formulas. But while Coke has made the switch nationally, Pepsi has only stopped using 4-MEI in California, says a new report. [More]
Is Brand Perception Tricking Our Brains Into Not Thinking About What We’re Tasting?
By 6.13.13
Most of us have seen hidden-camera tricks where some unwitting subject raves about what they are eating because they have been told it’s a certain brand or from a well-regarded restaurant, only to find out it’s a generic frozen dinner from the supermarket. What if these people aren’t necessarily pretending to like the food? A new study shows that brands may make us so predisposed to an opinion that we don’t use the part of our brain that helps to make such judgements. [More]
Appeals Court Hears Arguments On NYC’s Fizzling Big-Soda Ban
By 6.11.13
It’s been three months since a judge tossed out New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s ban on sugary drinks larger than 16 ounces, calling the regulation “arbitrary and capricious.” Today, a state appeals court panel heard arguments for and against the ban, but it doesn’t look good for Mayor Mike. [More]
From The Shameless To The Egregious, We Grade The Product Placements In 12 Ad-Packed Movies
By 6.7.13
You’ve probably seen the 30-second TV ads promoting that new 2-hour commercial for Google starring those two actors from that other movie that people really liked eight years ago. We’d like to think product placement has sunk to a new low, but every time we’re convinced that advertisers have hit bottom, someone throws them a more powerful digging implement. [More]
Vanilla Mountain Dew, Strawberry Pepsi Made Possible By New Soda Fountains
By 5.10.13
Four years after Coca-Cola launched its Freestyle soda fountains that allow users to mix/match/blend/concoct whatever flavor monstrosities they want without the hassle of having to bounce from nozzle to nozzle, PepsiCo has finally gotten on board the Fantasy Flavor Train with a test of a new soda fountain that allows customers to add shots of extra flavor into their sweet drinks. [More]
How My Love Of Diet Pepsi Vanilla Almost Got Me Ejected From Walmart
By 4.23.13
If our readership understands anything, its fanatical devotion to one product and an almost equally fanatical need to make stores follow their own policies. That is how Tom got in serious trouble with the employees of his local Walmart. Or did the local Walmart’s employees get in trouble with Tom? Walmart promises to price-match local competitors, including the prices with loyalty cards. Except, apparently, when it comes to Pepsi. For Tom.
Group Calls For Limits On Sugar In Soft Drinks
By 2.13.13
The Center for Science in the Public Interest, which loves to ruin everyone’s day by reminding people of all the calories and fat in the foods we enjoy, are calling on the FDA to set a safe level of added sugars in soft drinks and other sweetened beverages. [More]
Mountain Dew… Now For Breakfast
By 2.11.13
For people who think Taco Bell’s “Mtn Dew A.M.” blend of Mountain Dew and orange juice is just a little bit too natural for a breakfast drink, the folks at PepsiCo have heard your pleas and are rolling out an actual breakfast-drink version of Mountain Dew called “Kickstart.” [More]
Pepsi To Replace Coke In Costco’s Beloved $1.50 Soda & Hot Dog Deal
By 2.4.13
For many Costco shoppers, a trip to the warehouse store isn’t complete without stopping by the lunch counter and plunking down $1.50 for a hot dog and a Coca-Cola beverage. It’s the same price and pairing the company has had since 1985. But that’s about to change, with Costco making the decision to switch all its stores over to Pepsi. [More]
Pepsi Marinated Chicken Wings & 3 Other Potato Chip Flavors We’d Have To Be Drunk To Try
By 1.14.13
Sometimes it feels like every other country is having so much fun with their snacks and fast food while we’re just stuck with the ho-hum normal flavors of the West. Sour cream and onion-flavored potato chips? Fine, that’s tasty. BUT SO BORING. We can’t help but be jealous of countries like China, which has a vast array of Frito-Lay potato chips that come in flavors like “Pepsi Marinated Chicken Wings.” What in the what now? That has to be fun. [More]
Doritos, Pepsi & Bud Light Join Forces To Form Huge Supermarket Display Voltron
By 1.10.13
Sick of going separate sections of the supermarket to buy beer, soda and snacks? Then the folks at PepsiCo and Anheuser-Busch InBev N.V. have created the monster one-stop display for you. [More]
Diet Pepsi Switches Up Its Sweetener Ever So Quietly
By 12.17.12
Diet Pepsi has switched up its sweetener but it’s doing it ever so quietly and carefully, so as not to freak everyone out. The goal is to make sure that the soda will taste the way it’s supposed to for a longer time, but because the public in general hate change, the company isn’t going around trumpeting this new formula. [More]
Pepsi-Chicken Lay’s Potato Chips Are Tastier Than They Sound, But Only Sold In China
By 12.13.12
If there’s anything that people across the globe truly need and want, it’s more fizzy sugar water. And so PepsiCo is investing more money in getting the attention and the business of consumers in the world’s largest market. Their latest attention-getting scheme and bit of inter-brand synergy between two of the company’s signature brands: Cola chicken-flavored Lay’s potato chips. [More]
Japan’s New “Pepsi Special” Claims It Can Reduce Fat So You Can Eat Crap, Be Skinny
By 11.12.12
Pepsi is trying to pull a move in Japan with a new drink called “Pepsi Special” that would probably not fly with consumer watchdogs over here in the U.S. The company is reportedly touting the beverage as one that can basically cut down on your body’s fat so you can just go around chomping on burritos the size of your head and cheese fries with gravy (mmm, cheese) and still get skinny. That’s what we call wishful thinking. [More]
