Pepsi Blue: Difference between revisions

|introduced= {{start date and age|2002|8}}<ref name="Pepsi Blue is Coming"/><br />{{start date and age|2021|5}} (North American re-release)

Pepsi Blue was announced in May 2002.<ref name="Pepsi Blue is Coming"/> It launched in mid-2002 and discontinued in Canada and the United States in 2004, although it remains available in the [[Philippines]]. Its flavor is the result of taste-testing more than 100 flavors across 9 months.<ref name="Swallowing Pepsi Blue">Rick Aristotle Munarriz, for Fool.com. September 5, 2002[http://www.fool.com/dripport/2002/dripport020905.htm "Swallowing Pepsi Blue"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080206171533/http://www.fool.com/dripport/2002/dripport020905.htm |date=February 6, 2008 }}.</ref><ref name="Pepsi Blue is Coming">CNN Money staff. May 7, 2002 [https://money.cnn.com/2002/05/07/news/companies/pepsi/ "Pepsi Blue is Coming"].</ref> It was designed to attract teenage consumers with its bright blue color and unique flavor.<ref name="Marketers of colorful drinks dye for big sales">Theresa Howard, for USA Today. May 8, 2002. [https://www.usatoday.com/money/general/2002/05/07/pepsi-blue.htm "Marketers of colorful drinks dye for big sales"].</ref> The flavor was described by Pepsi only as "berry" and described by customers as similar to blueberries or raspberries, or similar to cotton candy with a berry-like aftertaste and much more sugary and syrupy than regular [[cola]]. It was tinted using [[Blue 1]],<ref name="BevNet">{{cite web|title=Pepsi Blue|url=http://www.bevnet.com/reviews/pepsiblue/facts.asp|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030620155034/http://www.bevnet.com/reviews/pepsiblue/facts.asp|archive-date=June 20, 2003|website=www.bevnet.com}}</ref> a highly controversial coloring agent [[Blue 1#Health and safety|banned]] in numerous countries at the time. The move to make a brightly colored version of the flagship [[Pepsi]] brand was spurred by 2001's introduction of [[Mountain Dew Code Red]], which had bumped PepsiCo's [[Mountain Dew]] division sales up 6%,<ref name="Marketers of colorful drinks dye for big sales"/> and another source noted that "Pepsi Blue attempted to imitate the lurid hues of [[Gatorade]]".<ref>{{cite news |last1=McCullough |first1=Michael |title=Determining demand for products that don't exist |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/496723192 |access-date=October 1, 2021 |work=Vancouver Sun |date=August 7, 2003 |location=Vancouver, British Columbia |page=D3}}</ref>