Ready to get a kick of caffeine to the face? Well Pepsi is coming out with a new drink, Pepsi Café which will be a coffee-infused soda. It will come in two flavors, original and vanilla. The drink will be available in the United States for a limited time come this April as a trial run.
“Cola has been a pretty stagnant category over the last 20-30 years,” said Todd Kaplan, vice president of marketing for Pepsi. “As consumer preferences continue to evolve, we as Pepsi need to evolve as well to better meet those needs.”
The reasoning behind this is that consumers are now into functional beverages. Meaning that they want to pair their drinks with some nutritional or functional value. You have drinks that will give you a boost of energy and others like White Claw that is seltzer and alcohol. And now you can get all hopped up on caffeine by drinking Pepsi.
Coca Cola has been making a coffee infused drink for a while now and it’s only natural that their top competitor would want to make something to get them some of the profits of a coffee/soda incarnation.
But If you remember in the 90’s Pepsi tested out Pepsi Kona which was another coffee drink. They were technically the first to put out such a drink but the timing was not right and it didn’t do well. Now it seems that people are ready to be more caffeinated and are apt to be more receptive of this new drink.
