Pepsi
Pepsi is a carbonated beverage that is produced and manufactured by PepsiCo. It is sold in retail stores, restaurants, cinemas and from vending machines. The drink was first made in the 1890s by pharmacist Caleb Bradham in New Bern, North Carolina. The brand was trademarked on June 16, 1903. There have been many Pepsi variants produced over the years since 1898, including Diet Pepsi, Crystal Pepsi, Pepsi Twist, Pepsi Max, Pepsi Free, Pepsi AM, Pepsi Samba, Pepsi Blue, Pepsi Gold, Pepsi Holiday Spice, Pepsi Jazz, Vanilla Pepsi, Pepsi X (available in Finland and Brazil), Pepsi Next (available in Japan and South Korea), Pepsi Raw, Pepsi Retro in Mexico, Pepsi One, Pepsi Ice Cucumber and Pepsi White in Japan.
In October 2008, Pepsi announced they would be redesigning its logo and re-branding many of its products by early 2009. In 2009, Pepsi, Diet Pepsi and Pepsi Max began using all lower-case fonts for name brands, and Diet Pepsi Max was re-branded as Pepsi Max. The brand’s blue and red globe trademark became a series of "smiles," with the central white band arcing at different angles depending on the product. As of January 2009, Pepsi’s newer logos have only been adopted in the United States. Currently, Pepsi Wild Cherry, Pepsi ONE, Pepsi Vanilla, and Pepsi Lime use their previous design. Diet Pepsi Wild Cherry, Diet Pepsi Lime, and Diet Pepsi Vanilla received the redesign.Origins
Pepsi was originally named "Brad’s Drink", after its creator, a pharmicist. It was created in the summer of 1893 and was later renamed Pepsi Cola in 1898, possibly due the digestive enzyme pepsin and kola nuts used in the recipe.[1] Bradham sought to create a fountain drink that was delicious and would aid in digestion and boost energy.[2]
Another theory is that Bradham and his customers simply thought the name "Pepsi" sounded good and reflected the fact that the drink had some kind of "pep" in it because it was a carbonated drink.[citation needed]
And another theory is that the word Pepsi was chosen because it reflected phonetically the sound of a can being opened, the sound "pop" "schi", was condensed and simplified in the name "Pepsi". This theory can be considered folklore only, since at the time of the naming of the drink, Pepsi was sold in glass bottles and not metal cans; and the pop top lid producing Pepsi’s oddly phonetic sound wouldn’t be invented for another forty years.[citation needed]
In 1903, Bradham moved the bottling of Pepsi-Cola from his drugstore into a rented warehouse. That year, Bradham sold 7,968 gallons of syrup. The next year, Pepsi was sold in six-ounce bottles, and sales increased to 19,848 gallons. In 1929, Pepsi received its first logo redesign since the original design of 1905. In 1926, the logo was changed again. In 1929, automobile race pioneer Barney Oldfield endorsed Pepsi-Cola in newspaper ads as "A bully drink…refreshing, invigorating, a fine bracer before a race".[citation needed]
In 1931, the Pepsi-Cola Company went bankrupt during the Great Depression– in large part due to financial losses incurred by speculating on wildly fluctuating sugar prices as a result of World War I. Assets were sold and Roy C. Megargel bought the Pepsi trademark.[3] Eight years later, the company went bankrupt again. Pepsi’s assets were then purchased by Charles Guth, the President of Loft Inc. Loft was a candy manufacturer with retail stores that contained soda fountains. He sought to replace Coca-Cola at his stores’ fountains after Coke refused to give him a discount on syrup. Guth then had Loft’s chemists reformulate the Pepsi-Cola syrup formula.Bans in India
- See also: PepsiCo – Criticisms
Pepsi arrived on the black market in India in 1988.[14] In 2003 and again in 2006, the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), a non-governmental organization in New Delhi, claimed that soda drinks produced by manufacturers in India, including both Pepsi and Coca-Cola, had dangerously high levels of pesticides in their drinks.[15] [16] Both PepsiCo and The Coca-Cola Company maintain that their drinks are safe for consumption and have published newspaper advertisements that say pesticide levels in their products are less than those in other foods such as tea, fruit and dairy products.[17] In the Indian state of Kerala, sale and production of Pepsi-Cola, along with other soft drinks, were banned in 2006[18] following partial bans on the drinks in schools, colleges and hospitals in five other Indian states.[18] On September 22, 2006, the High Court in Kerala overturned the Kerala ban ruling that only the central government can ban food products.[19]
[edit] Rivalry with Coca-Cola
According to Consumer Reports, in the 1970s, the rivalry continued to heat up the market. Pepsi conducted blind taste tests in stores, in what was called the "Pepsi Challenge". These tests suggested that more consumers preferred the taste of Pepsi (which is believed to have more lemon oil, less orange oil, and uses vanillin rather than vanilla) to Coke. The sales of Pepsi started to climb, and Pepsi kicked off the "Challenge" across the nation. This became known as the "Cola Wars."
In 1985, The Coca-Cola Company, amid much publicity, changed its formula. The theory has been advanced that New Coke, as the reformulated drink came to be known, was invented specifically in response to the Pepsi Challenge. However, a consumer backlash led to Coca-Cola quickly introducing a modified version of the original formula (removing the expensive Haitian lime oil and changing the sweetener to corn syrup) as Coke "Classic".
In the U.S., Pepsi’s total market share was about 31.7 percent in 2004, while Coke’s was about 43.1 percent.[20]
Overall, Coca-Cola continues to outsell Pepsi in almost all areas of the world. However, exceptions include Saudi Arabia; Pakistan (Pepsi has been a dominant sponsor of the Pakistan cricket team since the 1990s); the Dominican Republic; the Canadian provinces of Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador and Prince Edward Island; and Guatemala.[21].