Because healthy food just isn’t cool enough for today’s youth, the folks at PepsiCo will soon be rolling out “snackified,” amped-up — to the extreme! — pureed fruit in the form of something called Tropolis.

From the Wall Street Journal:

Tropolis, an 80-calorie fruit puree, which comes in brightly colored pouches, will be marketed to moms and kids. PepsiCo’s Tropicana unit is rolling out apple, grape and cherry Tropolis pouches in test markets in the Midwest next month, at $2.49 to $3.49 for a four-pack.

[Side question: Is it just us, or does “Tropolis” sound like a fictional hair-restoring drug, or maybe the way a toddler might mispronounce Superman’s city?]

Pepsi’s CEO, who probably makes more in a week than everyone reading this post will make in a year, actually said the following: “We see the emerging opportunity to ‘snackify’ beverages and ‘drinkify’ snacks as the next frontier in food and beverage convenience.”

A professor of nutrition at New York University uses fewer made-up buzz words in her assessment of the product. “They start out with real food, so let’s give them credit for applesauce and mashed-up bananas,” but “the rest of it is sugar,” she tells the Journal. “Kids would be better off eating an apple or a banana.”

PepsiCo’s Latest Challenge: ‘Snackify’ Some Beverages [WSJ]

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