Pepsi`s mid-calorie soda aims to win back drinkers
Baku, February 24 (AZERTAC). Some people don`t like the calories in regular soda, but loathe the taste of diet. So the nation`s No. 2 cola company is rolling out "Pepsi Next," a drink that has about half the calories of regular Pepsi (PEP) at 60 calories per can. The cola, which is slated to hit store shelves nationally by the end of March, is Pepsi`s biggest product launch in years. The drink comes as people increasingly move away from sugary drinks to water and other lower-calorie beverages because of health concerns. It`s also an attempt by Pepsi to revive the cola wars against Coke (KO) and others. Pepsi says its latest stab at an in-between soda uses a different formula to more closely imitate the taste of regular soda. Pepsi Next is made with a mix of three artificial sweeteners and high fructose corn syrup. A Pepsi spokeswoman, Melisa Tezanos, said the company developed the cola by researching the "taste curve" that consumers experience when drinking regular soda. She compared that arc to how someone might evaluate a sip of wine, from the moment the liquid hits the tongue to the aftertaste it leaves.
Pepsi Next also follows the company`s lower-calorie variations of its other drinks. Gatorade, a unit of Pepsi, has "G2," which at 20 calories has a little less than half the calories of the original version. And the company`s Tropicana unit introduced "Trop50," which is half of the 110 calories in a regular 8-ounce glass of orange juice.
Pepsi hopes Pepsi Next will help it gain back the market share it`s lost in recent years. The company`s namesake drink had its share in the carbonated soft drink market fall to 9.5% in 2010, from 13.6% a decade earlier, while Diet Pepsi`s share remained steady at 5.3%.
Coke is still the top selling brand, with 17% market share. Diet Coke follows with 9.9%.
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