| Healthy soda? That may strike some as
an oxymoron. But for Coca-Cola and PepsiCo. it's a marketing
opportunity. In coming months, both companies will introduce new carbonated drinks that are fortified with vitamins and minerals: Diet Coke Plus and Tava, which is PepsiCo's new offering. They will be promoted as "sparkling beverages." The companies are not tailing them soft drinks because people are turning away from traditional soda, which has been hurt in part by publicity about its link to obesity. While the soda business remains a $68 billion industry in the United States, consumers are increasingly reaching for bottled water, sparkling juices and green tea drinks. Irr'2005. the mount of soda sold in this country dropped for the first time in recent history. Even the diet soda business has slowed. Coca-Cola's chief executive. E. Neville Isdell. clearly frustrated that his industry has been singled out in the obesity debate, insisted at a recent conference that his diet products should be included in the health and wellness category because, with few or no calories, they are a logical answer m expanding waistlines. "Diet and light brands are actually health and wellness brands," Mr. Isdell said. He asserted that Diet Coke Plus was a way to broaden the category to attact new consumers. Tom Pirko. president of Bevmark, a food and beverage consulting firm, said it was "a joke" to market artificially sweetened soft drinks as healthy, even if they were fortified with vitamins and minerals. Research by his firm and others shows that consumers think of diet soft drinks as "the antithesis of healthy," he said. These consumers "comment on putting something synthetic and not natural into their bodies when they consume diet colas," Mr. Pirko said. "And in the midst of a health and welfare boom, that ain't good." The idea of healthy soda is not entirely new. In 2004, Cadbury Schweppes caused a stir when it unveiled 7Up Plus, a low-calorie soda fortified with vitamins and minerals. Last year, Cadbury tried to extend the healthy halo over its regular 7Up brand by labeling it "100 percent natural." But the company changed the label to "100 percent natural flavor" after complaints from a nutrition group that a product containing high-fructose com syrup should not be considered natural, and 7Up Plus has floundered. The new fortified soft drinks earned grudging approval from Michael F. Jacobsen, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. a nutrition advocacy group and frequent critic of regular soft drinks, which it has labeled "liquid candy." A survey by Morgan Stanley found that only 10 percent of consumers interviewed in 2006 considered diet colas a healthy choice, compared with 14 percent in 2003. Furthermore, 30 percent of the consumers who were interviewed last year said that they were reluctant to drink beverages with artificial sweeteners, up from 21 percent in 2004. |