Pepsi foresees the dissolution of the line between solid and liquid foods, and has done so in a press release using the words “snackify” and “drinkify.”
PepsiCo is falling behind competitors Coca-Cola Co. and Dr. Pepper Snapple Group, Inc, and PepsiCo’s Chairman and Chief Executive Indra Nooyi wants to change all that with an innovative look at nutritional snack and beverage consumption. The Wall Street Journal quotes Nooyi as announcing, “We see the emerging opportunity to ‘snackify’ beverages and ‘drinkify’ snacks as the next frontier in food and beverage convenience.” Pepsi intends to lead the way with a product called Tropolis, described by the WSJ as, “a new pureed fruit product that it considers thick enough to be a snack rather than a beverage.” Pepsi should use those exact words in its advertising campaign, because, boy, does that sound appealing.
The product is made up of filtered water, apple puree, and four kinds of fruit concentrate, although banana puree concentrate was the only one named by the WSJ. The news outlet quotes Marion Nestle, a nutrition professor at New York University, who argues that this snackified beverage is just another way to pump kids full of sugar. Pepsi responds that the goal of Tropolis is to get kids eating fruit. The process of introducing kids to fruit needs a middleman.
However this experiment winds up working out for PepsiCo, it’s added “snackify” and “drinkify” to the lexicon, so we can at least be thankful for that. The product will be test-marketed in the American Midwest, so Mom and Dad? If you’re reading this, snap some up and mail them to the office. Thanks.
Source: The Wall Street Journal, via Treehugger
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