Cook County, IL, which includes the city of Chicago, recently became the largest local government in the country to successfully impose a tax on sweetened beverages. Now the same County Board of Commissioners that approved the tax has repealed it, only a few months after it went into effect. [More]
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Pepsi Admits It Spent Too Much Pushing Healthier Beverages
By 10.4.17
Americans are slowly losing our taste for fizzy sugar water, but PepsiCo may have overestimated how quickly that’s happening. The company admits that it spent the third quarter stuffing shelves with more “healthy” products than the public was ready for. [More]
Philadelphia Learns That Soda Tax May Be A Bad Long-Term School Funding Solution
By 8.22.17
Here’s the problem with “sin” taxes, like those on alcohol, tobacco, and fizzy beverages: You can use those taxes to raise money for a specific purpose, or to encourage citizens to consume less of the thing being taxed, but you can’t hope for both. That’s what Philadelphia has learned as its tax on sweetened beverages has failed to raise as much money as the city hoped. [More]
Panera’s Cups Will Now Tell You How Much Sugar Is In That Fountain Drink
By 8.22.17
Panera Bread’s health crusade continues apace this week: After launching a new “clean” beverage line and posting calorie and added sugars information for its drinks in its stores, Panera will be rolling out new cups that list nutritional information for every beverage it sells. [More]
New Coca-Cola CEO Blames Online Shopping For Sales Decline
By 5.10.17
When you shop online, you’re skipping an important part of the retail experience. No, not waiting in line or dodging cosmetics kiosk workers. You also don’t take the kind of in-mall break that involves soft drinks or a bottle of water or iced tea, and that’s a problem for Coca-Cola. [More]
Major Mountain Dew Syrup Spill Creates “Huge Foaming Event” At Pepsi Plant
By 4.11.17
Maybe you find it hilarious when your friend’s can of Mountain Dew erupts all over their shirt and face (unless you’re left cleaning up the mess on the floor, negating all the hilarity). But a large-scale spill of Mountain Dew syrup — resulting in a “huge foaming event” — was a genuine cause for concern at one Pepsi bottling facility. [More]
Coca-Cola, Pepsi Will Pull 2-Liters From Philadelphia Over Soda Tax
By 3.22.17
The recently enacted sugary drink tax in Philadelphia has not been without controversy, including a soda industry lawsuit, unhappy consumers, and push back from lawmakers. The two biggest names in soda are now making drastic changes to the products they offer — and the people they employ — and blaming it on the tax. [More]
McDonald’s Dropping Price On Sodas & McCafe Drinks In Effort To Lure In Customers
By 2.22.17
Your McDonald’s bill is about to get a bit cheaper, that is if you’re just purchasing beverages: The Golden Arches will reduce the cost of soda and coffee items starting in April. [More]
SodaStream Recalls 51K Bottles That Could Explode Under Pressure
By 2.22.17
When making a carbonated beverage at home you might expect there to be a little bit of pressure during the process, but probably not enough to make a bottle explode. Yet that’s what tens of thousands of recently recalled SodaStream bottles could do. [More]
Coca-Cola Accused Of Illegally Misleading Consumers About Sugary Drinks
By 1.4.17
In a new federal lawsuit, public health advocates accuse Coca-Cola and the American Beverage Association of engaging in a “pattern of deception to mislead and confuse the public” and waging an “aggressive campaign of disinformation about the health consequences of consuming sugar-sweetened beverages.” [More]
Dr. Pepper Snapple Spending $1.7B On Flavored Water
By 11.22.16
As consumers turn toward beverages that aren’t soda, the major players in the business have been taking note, and trying to keep up. Like Dr. Pepper Snapple Group, which just went shopping for new drinks and ended up spending $1.7 billion to buy itself a flavored water company. [More]
Coca-Cola Thinks You Might Want A “Selfie Bottle” To Take A Pic While You Guzzle Soda
By 11.17.16
Because there’s apparently a demand for selfies of people while they’re drinking soda, Coca-Cola has a new bottle design that takes a photo while you sip from it. [More]
Controversial Soda Tax Coming To Chicago After County Board Vote
By 11.10.16
Two days after voters in four different cities approved local taxes on sugary beverages, the county board for Cook County, IL – home to Chicago — has narrowly okayed a $.01/ounce tax, making this the largest single market to try to curb obesity while fattening the municipal coffers. [More]
Pepsi Plans To Cut Added Sugar In Majority Of Drinks By 2025
By 10.17.16
Pepsi’s seemingly endless experiments with sweeteners in its drinks is taking on yet another new chapter, as the beverage behemoth unveiled a plan to reduce added sugars and calories in dozens of products by 2025. [More]
Chicago Might Be Next To Try Tax On Sodas & Sugary Drinks
By 10.13.16
Days after the Whole Health Organization announced it supported taxes on sugary drinks in order to curb obesity, the largest county in Illinois is weighing that option — following in the footsteps of Berkeley, CA, and Philadelphia, where a similar tax is now subject to a beverage industry legal battle. [More]
Beverage Industry Takes Philadelphia To Court Over Soda Tax
By 9.14.16
A few months back, the city of Philadelphia became just the second city in the U.S. to successfully pass a tax specifically on soft drinks, adding $.015/ounce to the price a distributor pays for sodas — including diet drinks — and other sweetened beverages. As expected, the beverage industry has fired back with a lawsuit challenging this tax, alleging that it illegally duplicates a state tax and diminishes the purchasing power of low-income Philadelphia residents. [More]
Could AB InBev Try To Buy Coca-Cola To Create Beer & Soda Voltron?
By 9.12.16
After you’ve spent more than $100 billion to acquire your biggest competitor, what’s left? Sure, you can buy up that smaller business here and sell off this subsidiary there, but how does a company regain the adrenaline rush of pulling off a transaction so big people need to stop and count the zeros? [More]
Bottled Water Expected To Outsell Soda For The First Time Soon
By 8.2.16
It might not come as a surprise to hear that bottled water sales will soon outstrip those of soda for the first time ever. After all, companies have been pushing calorie-free drinks as alternatives to the sweet stuff for some time as consumer preferences have changed. But bottled water’s burgeoning popularity isn’t just about cutting calories. [More]
