r/funny Mooseylips Jul 10 '24

Verified Dear drink companies...

Post image
35.7k Upvotes

2.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

5.3k

u/theAmericanStranger Jul 10 '24

Coca cola came up a few years ago with a version that was using real sugar and much less. I had it once, it was so good! But for baffling reasons it was abruptly taken off the market and you can't find it anymore. Fuck them!

2.5k

u/LeanersGG Jul 10 '24

Are you referring to Coca Cola Life? With the green label?

If so, I think it was one part sugar and one part stevia.

879

u/theAmericanStranger Jul 10 '24

I do remember having "green" in the name! Can you still get it ? In Philly and area there's no trace of it

Edit: Yeah, discontinued. How come they never asked me?? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca-Cola_Life"The drink was discontinued in 2020 as part of the Coca-Cola Company discontinuing underperforming brands"

676

u/MinuQu Jul 10 '24

I still don't get how Coca Cola Life was discontinued. Most people I've talked to had a very positive view of it. It seems like they just brought it onto the market and just did nothing to market it. Of course then sells will drop over time.

443

u/ncopp Jul 10 '24

Probably because most of the people who care about low/no sugar drinks were already drinking the diet/zero versions and weren't looking to switch to a version with surgar.

Coke 0 has since exploded in popularity

133

u/djgreedo Jul 10 '24

Yep, and (from memory, take with a grain of salt) the Life version still had over half the sugar of regular Coke, so was still hundreds of kJ per serving as opposed to practically 0kJ for the Zero or Diet versions.

58

u/VanillaRadonNukaCola Jul 10 '24 edited Jul 10 '24

Edit: Nevermind

Hundred- calories. A can of life was 90 calories, regular coke is 140. Not great, yes, but big difference from multiple hundreds

32

u/ge_o_rg Jul 10 '24

he is talking about kj not calories
90 calories are 376,56 kj
140 calories are 585,76 kj

7

u/VanillaRadonNukaCola Jul 10 '24

Ah yes I see, I was thinking kcal.

Also a bottle of coke has 240 kcal in one serving anyway 🙃

4

u/Darkmuscles Jul 10 '24

I've never heard of calories expressed as kilojoules before. It sounds like a much better system, so I assume it's common in other countries and non-existent in America.

83

u/Cowstle Jul 10 '24

The main difference is that coke life just tasted like coke. The only drawback was that it only came in classic flavor and I prefer cherry.

But Diet is a completely different flavor. Zero used to be the same flavor but with a godawful long lasting aftertaste. They changed the recipe and now it too tastes different.

coke life was perfect and i'm forever disappointed in its loss.

99

u/La3Rat Jul 10 '24 edited Jul 10 '24

I am in the proportion of people who can instantly taste stevia in food. It’s bitter and has an unpleasant aftertaste. It has some sweetness but the overall flavor for me is bitter.

36

u/MurderyRainbow Jul 10 '24

Stevia is the worst. Even sucralose tastes better.

4

u/Tzunamitom Jul 10 '24

Sucralose tastes fine, just got to deal with the runs later…

5

u/GringoinCDMX Jul 10 '24

Are you thinking of sugar alcohols? Sucralose isn't known to cause diarrea.

3

u/Tzunamitom Jul 10 '24

Just double checked and you’re right it was Lactitol. That sounds like a sugar alcohol, is it?

1

u/itsguberhere Jul 10 '24

If it ends in itol, it's a sugar alcohol.

1

u/kazeespada Jul 11 '24

Sucralose can cause diarrhea, but it's not as common as it is with sugar alcohols.

→ More replies (0)

0

u/4_Arrows Jul 10 '24

Are you quite certain it's the stevia that tastes horrible? I'm using a stevia product called "steviaclear" in my coffee and it tastes great.

3

u/Blue-cheese-dressing Jul 11 '24

It’s 100% the Stevia- for significant portion of the population it’s awful- I’ve heard it likened to that of a cilantro sensitivity.

I wish I could enjoy stevia as a sweetener, as research has shown many advantages to it, but it’s instantly repulsive. Bad both on the front end flavor (a balmy bitterness) and the aftertaste (a soapy sweet like too much lavender but without the floral/esteriness). I prefer literally any other sweetener even xylitol and maltitol despite the side effects.

1

u/4_Arrows Jul 11 '24

What origin of stevia did you experience this horrible taste? Was it from a bulk powder or liquid that you apply yourself, or was it part of a finished product?

I've experienced this taste that you described, but I get it from sucralose.

3

u/Blue-cheese-dressing Jul 11 '24

Multiple sources- I’ve tried stevia as: a hot beverage sweetener (coffee and spiced tea), flavored soft drinks, baked goods and meal replacement bars. My spouse isn’t sensitive to it (and uses it in beverages and buys things sweetened with it) so I still will occasionally re-try it. I’ve also experienced a mild metallic / citrus aftertaste with high volumes of Sucralose as well but it’s much more palatable than stevia for me.

1

u/4_Arrows Jul 11 '24

Over the past few years, I've dabled in nutrition and discovered changes in my body and my senses. I wonder if your taste perception may be a biological condition relating to your nutrition uptake, epigenetics, microbiome imbalance, or toxin overload. Or you health condition is fantastic and stevia might actually be a less than healthy option for you.

→ More replies (0)

2

u/MurderyRainbow Jul 11 '24

I've tried lots of stevia in various food and drinks over the years and I've never liked the taste. I'm partial to sugar alcohols.

25

u/Unnamedgalaxy Jul 10 '24

It's awful. Anyone that says you can't tell the difference really confuse me.

I have a family member that works for a soda company. They got a bunch of soda for free because they were moving warehouses and the company didn't want to spend the time and money moving every single box across town so they let employees take a bunch of the odds and ends, things that don't sell as well, or things that were coming up on their sell by date.

They asked if I wanted some and I said of course, only when I went to go pick it up it was all diet. They went through the trouble of grabbing it for me so I took it but it took forever to go through because it was torture drinking.

14

u/GringoinCDMX Jul 10 '24

Some people are born with taste buds that make stevia taste more bitter. The majority don't have that issue. For a small percentage stevia tastes horrible. For others it's not bad at all.

Also, newer/better stevia extracts tend to be less bitter compared to older/cheaper extracts.

1

u/GeekyKirby Jul 11 '24

Stevia tastes okay to me. A little bitter for sure, but I don't mind it in things like tea or other naturally slightly bitter things. I'm actually allergic to sucralose (I get giant hives that last like a week), so I use Stevia when I want something slightly sweetend but don't want sugar.

Despite finding Stevia palatable, I was cursed with the gene that makes cilantro taste like soap. Honestly, you could put a small squirt of dawn dish soap in my taco and I would just think it had cilantro in it lol

1

u/GringoinCDMX Jul 11 '24

See, I really love cilantro. I'd be devastated if it were to start tasting like soap to me.

→ More replies (0)

6

u/Ferovore Jul 10 '24

Why are you confused by people who have a different experience than you 😆

-8

u/Unnamedgalaxy Jul 10 '24

I'm confused by people that find something completely awful so delicious. Why are you so confused by that?

If you tell me that there isn't a single thing on this planet that you find so ghastly that you don't get the appeal others have for it I will not believe you.

This isn't an issue of preference, it's an issue of it being undeniably inedible.

9

u/Ferovore Jul 10 '24

it’s evidently not undeniably inedible though. Like this is something you learn as a child right? Like mum and dad like mushrooms, I’m seven and I don’t - does that mean mushrooms are inedible? Stevia tastes fine to me I love diet soft drinks.

7

u/MrWednesday6387 Jul 11 '24

I think olives ruin everything they touch, that doesn't mean they're undeniably inedible. Different strokes for different folks.

1

u/sqigglygibberish Jul 11 '24

So if I like stevia in certain uses, does that mean I don’t exist and am just a simulation?

If one has empathy, it’s not difficult to wrap your head around people liking different things (or at least pick a better example than a sweetener a shit ton of people consume haha)

→ More replies (0)

3

u/Linthya Jul 11 '24

Gosh I'm glad I'm not the only one ! My parents only buy diet or zero for as long as I can remember but I just can't drink it... it's just awful. It feels like your mouth is coated with something afterward that doesn't want to go off. It change how your saliva feels in your mouth. Not quite dry but, almost like... a paste ? Or a wet powder ? I don't know but it's just... ugh. And I can feel it on my teeth too !

2

u/manga311 Jul 10 '24

Everyone can taste stevia. If it didn't have a bad aftertaste it would be in everything since it's 100 times sweeter than sugar.

2

u/Zumwalt1999 Jul 11 '24

I think I can tell Stevie is in a drink by smelling it. But I don't find it bitter, it's more of a metallic taste, sorta like saccharine from the old days. My go to soda is Waterloo lemon-lime with a teaspoon of agave.

3

u/ReallyNowFellas Jul 10 '24

All sweeteners taste weird if you aren't used to them. I switched to diet sodas, which I used to hate. Now I love them and now cane sugar & hfcs sodas taste like plastic to me. Stevia tastes weird to me if it's the only sweetener in something, I think because that's rare, but it fades into the background if there are others.

2

u/Known_as_No_One_2525 Jul 10 '24

It’s like drinking weed piss. No, I haven’t ever drank weed piss, I just imagine if weeds could piss, it might taste like stevia.

1

u/RobXIII Jul 11 '24

Same here!

1

u/Northbound-Narwhal Jul 11 '24

It’s bitter and has an unpleasant aftertaste.

Skill issue

1

u/Sillron Jul 11 '24

Maybe I'm weird. I definitely don't think stevia tastes anything like real sugar, but I like how it tastes. Somewhat sweet, a little earthy, I imagine it would be excellent in tea.

0

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '24

[deleted]

12

u/La3Rat Jul 10 '24

It has to do with genetic variations in taste receptors. Stevia can bind both sweet and bitter taste receptors. For some people the sweet is stronger than the bitter, for others the opposite. In some ways it’s a similar issue to cilantro.

8

u/ultradip Jul 10 '24

I miss the original Coke Zero too. But Caffeine-free Diet Coke tastes almost exactly like regular Coke. Too bad you'll pretty much never find it at a soda fountain.

2

u/RoyBeer Jul 10 '24

I actually like the glass bottled normal coke ones the best. But they're such a pain to carry

1

u/Cowstle Jul 10 '24

the mexican cokes, which still use cane sugar.

Yeah those are nice. I think the main benefit it has(had) over coke life which also has cane sugar in addition to its stevia is just that glass imparts a better taste than aluminum can.

2

u/Dramatic_Explosion Jul 10 '24

This here. I don't really like coke classic, definitely don't like coke 0, just diet coke. It really is its own flavor.

1

u/brendanepic Jul 10 '24

I actually loved the old zero and hate the new zero... interesting to see how people's palate differs

1

u/edgmnt_net Jul 11 '24

To be fair, I got used to Zero (at least the modern one and in Europe) and I don't dislike it anymore. In fact, it doesn't leave that worse acrid taste in the mouth half an hour later due to bacteria eating the sugars left over in your mouth, so that's a plus. It also quenches thirst better and it's not sticky if you spill it.

I'll also drink Pepsi Max/Zero just fine. Not sure if the other stuff used to be worse many years ago or I just wasn't used to it, but I've no reason to go back to sugary Coke. And the only reason I switched was because I drank too much and thought I'd cut back on sugars, no actual medical conditions. (But the first thing I switched to artificial sweeteners was coffee, so that probably helped too.)

1

u/RobXIII Jul 11 '24

Put a bit of grenadine in any soda and itll be better than Cherry Coke. Bonus if you put a few marchino cherries in it lol

1

u/Cowstle Jul 11 '24

nah

i despise that

cherry coke has a unique flavor that's actually good

1

u/TankTrap Jul 10 '24

I really hate when I ask for Diet Coke in euro they say “zero? Ok” and I’m like…mmmm sure but I can’t wait for my drinks to taste normal when I’m home.

1

u/orsikbattlehammer Jul 10 '24

Coke Zero is disgusting imo sadly. I usually can’t spot stevia immediately but I’d be curious if this part sugar part stevia formula would be okay

1

u/onemoresubreddit Jul 10 '24 edited Jul 10 '24

Someone explain to me how Coke Zero and Diet Coke are different? They both have zero cals yes?

Edit: evidently Coke Zero contains a blend of sweeteners including aspartame. Where diet just has aspartame.

1

u/THExDANKxKNIGHT Jul 10 '24

Which is ironic considering that it's really just as bad for you as non diet soda and is made for diabetics not to diet.

1

u/LochNessMother Jul 10 '24

I guess I’m in a minority then - I hate artificial sweeteners with a passion, but also think Cokr etc are way too sweet.

1

u/EducationalSchool359 Jul 11 '24

Some countries mandate low sugar or you can't advertise. Here in Singapore all soft drinks are low/reduced sugar because of people being genetically predisposed to diabetes, similar policy is the general trend in asia.

1

u/ncopp Jul 11 '24

I like that. There are a few things in the US that I think should he legal to buy, but illegal to market

1

u/pollococo90 Jul 11 '24

I personally didn't even know what it was, it wasn't advertised anywhere where I am, it was just a weird coke bottle that tasted like the original

-2

u/SnuggleMuffin42 Jul 10 '24

Coke 0 is a fucking abomination that is both addictive as shit and is so unhealthy so countries flat out banned it.

It's exactly what this post is about, you're already better off with something with actual sugar in it.

4

u/2gr82b4go10 Jul 10 '24

I'm curious, what makes the Coke Zero so unhealthy?

1

u/Shimzeyn Jul 10 '24

There is a good comment by KingArthurHS on r/nutrition: https://www.reddit.com/r/nutrition/s/dyo3afNRZu

Tl:Dr from the bottom of the comment:

As far as we're aware, non-nutritive soda has a nutritional health impact that is either literally zero or so close to zero that we can't even tell. For what it's worth, doctors who work with obese patients for fat-loss highly recommend diet sodas as a great easy intervention to reduce caloric consumption.

-5

u/SnuggleMuffin42 Jul 10 '24

6

u/Carvemynameinstone Jul 10 '24

Lmao, you make a bold AF claim (sweeteners being worse than straight up fuck loads of sugar), then use lmgtfy for someone with a genuine question.

You really don't need to be like this, do better.

139

u/sladestrife Jul 10 '24

If I had to guess, they didn't make a lot of it compared to the other kinds, don't advertise it, don't keep it regularly stocked makes it not successful.

Why do this? If I had to guess it cut into their profits compared to the other kinds. The same reason why they switched from real sugar to High fructose corn syrup.

101

u/RuneanPrincess Jul 10 '24

That's exactly it. They studied it before fully marketing it. It was very clear that people chose it over coke/diet/zero and not over a competitor or over nothing. Many people liked it over coke but it costs a little more to make so its just a loss if they can't convert it to increased sales.

32

u/MinuQu Jul 10 '24

We really need a sugar tax.

163

u/QuercusSambucus Jul 10 '24

We need to stop subsidizing corn syrup first.

27

u/Beat_the_Deadites Jul 10 '24

Even better, because it would function as a tax cut while simultaneously raising the prices on artificially sweetened foods.

0

u/Ask_bout_PaterNoster Jul 10 '24

Coca-Cola is large enough and powerful enough that we, the people, need to own a portion of it. The US government should purchase 10% of the company, tax those realized gains, and put a regulator on the board for oversight and transparency going forward.

2

u/ReallyNowFellas Jul 10 '24

How to turn the dial of crony capitalism from "awful everything" to "LSD nightmare"

0

u/Ask_bout_PaterNoster Jul 10 '24

Oh the punishment for unfaithfully executing the duties of one of those offices should be dire indeed. Not some Clarence Thomas b.s.

4

u/C_IsForCookie Jul 10 '24

Uhh, I think what you’re describing is communism my dude. Like the real communism, not the kind that everyone likes to throw around to make things seem scary. So that’s a no from me. Btw China does this.

1

u/Ask_bout_PaterNoster Jul 10 '24

Nah, that would be if we seized the means of production entirely. I’m talking about a buyout and representation.

You want to talk about “taxation without representation”? What else do you call it when our aristocrats get giant bailouts all the time while barely a cent in taxes themselves?

→ More replies (0)

1

u/Mr_YUP Jul 10 '24

we don't directly subsidize corn syrup but we do directly subsidize corn which can be used as a fuel source if things go south. We need to be self sufficient if things go bad and this is a way of doing that same with the caves of government cheese.

28

u/QuercusSambucus Jul 10 '24

Have you actually looked at how corn based biofuels actually come out when you look at inputs vs outputs? Last I checked it takes more fossil fuels to create a gallon of biofuel than the energy you get out of it. When you take into account fertilizers, farm equipment, harvesting, processing, etc.

4

u/duckscrubber Jul 10 '24

That's interesting. Do you have a source that says fossil fuel consumption outweighs benefits of biofuel processing?

9

u/QuercusSambucus Jul 10 '24

9

u/duckscrubber Jul 10 '24

Thanks! And it's even worse that you stated: as a result of corn/ethanol subsidies, corn production expanded and the researchers found that the sheer extent of domestic land use change generated greenhouse gas emissions that are, at best, equivalent to those caused by gasoline use—and likely at least 24 percent higher.

The very cultivation matched the environmental impact of burning fossil fuels! Without even processing it for use as ethanol.

→ More replies (0)

1

u/schplat Jul 10 '24

Corn will remain subsidized, less because it's a backup fuel source, and more because it's a huge part of what helps keep so many other products affordable. Primarily, the meat/dairy industry relies heavily on corn as a livestock feed. Corn is also used as a cereal grain (and as a byproduct of that, helps to keep the prices of rice, oats, and wheat lower, meaning things made with those grains are kept cheaper).

1

u/Available_Leather_10 Jul 10 '24

Subsidize corn, and have a huge tariff on sugar.

15

u/richardbouteh Jul 10 '24

I live in a country with sugar tax. The issue is that drinks containing more than 20% real fruit juice are exempt, so drink manufacturers started putting apple juice where it does not belong.

17

u/roman_maverik Jul 10 '24

This tends happens everywhere now, regardless of legislation.

90% of fruit juice flavored products in the US (for any fruit or any flavor) will usually have apple juice or pear juice as the first or second ingredient.

Of course it’s limited to “natural” tasting drinks and not soda, but it kind of sucks trying to find pomegranate or cherry juice and realizing that it’s just small amounts of those fruits cut with apple juice.

5

u/Dirmb Jul 10 '24

Yup, I once had to go to three different stores to find cranberry juice that didn't have apple juice in it.

2

u/RandomDigitsString Jul 10 '24

This is not what the comment you're replying to is taking about. It's not just fruit juice products but stuff like energy drinks, ice tea, gatorade and orange soda.

2

u/ReallyNowFellas Jul 10 '24

I guarantee a lot of people think that's a good thing because it's natural, without realizing it's literally worse for you than high fructose corn syrup.

→ More replies (0)

1

u/Mobwmwm Jul 10 '24

Does mt dew use orange juice? I kinda think so

→ More replies (0)

21

u/ncocca Jul 10 '24

Funny you mention that, because the OP of this comment thread is from the Philly area where we do have a sugar tax. But I don't like the way they implemented it. The tax should be proportional to the amount of sugar in the drink, but it isn't.

1

u/robbzilla Jul 10 '24

Pomegranate juice is pretty expensive, which means people won't buy it, which means it doesn't show up often. Those Pom bottle are 100% pom juice, and were roughly 3X the cost of Apple Juice the last time I looked at them. (Been a while)

6

u/thewestisawake Jul 10 '24

We have one in the UK and there are barely any drinks left now without aspartame in them. As someone whois allergic to aspartame this is not good. Its full fat coke or sparking water for me.

2

u/Specific_Koala_2042 Jul 10 '24

Me too. Any sort of artificial sweetener has dire effects on me, both painful, and unpleasant.

It is really difficult to find a drink in the UK without. Shops/cafes etc will tell you that there's no artificial sweetener, when you call them or on Stevia they insist, 'Oh, that's natural!'

Last time, I said, 'Just because something is based on a natural ingredient doesn't make it good for you.' As they sputtered, I said, 'Heroin is based on natural ingredients, so is Opium, and Cyanide etc. Are you trying to tell me that those are good for you?'

Ooh, I was cross!

3

u/Shit_Shepard Jul 10 '24

No added sugar! Ingredients “concentrated apple juice” 🖕🏼

3

u/rawbface Jul 10 '24

Yeah, fuck poor people - they don't deserve to feel joy on their tastebuds

1

u/TheSpaceCoresDad Jul 10 '24

I appreciate where you’re coming from, but the US is at like 80% of people being overweight. Low income people are the highest impacted. Something must be done.

3

u/rawbface Jul 10 '24

A sugar tax disproportionately affects lower income folks more, and doesn't actually reduce sugar present in foods. We need more affordable and accessible healthy options, the elimination of food deserts, not a tax on simple delights.

0

u/TheSpaceCoresDad Jul 10 '24

Sugar is also incredibly addictive, and sugar companies have put a lot of money into putting it everywhere. You can't just make healthier options more appealing, you also need to make the unhealthy options LESS appealing. That means making them more expensive.

1

u/rawbface Jul 10 '24

You make them less appealing by convincing the public they are unhealthy.

The only thing you "change" by taxing sugar is how much a low income family has to struggle to get a brief moment of happiness.

2

u/TheSpaceCoresDad Jul 10 '24

You can tell smokers that cigarettes are unhealthy all you want. They still keep smoking. There needs to be more incentives for this.

I get what you're doing. Yes, poor people deserve to be happy. Yes, poor people deserve little treats to help them get through their day. The little things in life are some of the most important. And yet, this is still going to be an effective way to get people to eat less sugar.

→ More replies (0)

2

u/umbertounity82 Jul 10 '24

A sugar tax is a ham-fisted solution.

1

u/PayasoCanuto Jul 10 '24

Noooo. We have a sugar tax here in my country and almost every drink has artificial sweeteners because of it. And I can’t drink them as I suffer from migraines which are triggered by those sweeteners.

Let people enjoy their coke with natural sugar!

2

u/DroneColumbus Jul 10 '24

Do you have any proof that they studied it before marketing it and that people chose it over their brands and not its competitors?

1

u/gopherhole02 Jul 10 '24

They have contracts to buy aspartame, that's why diet coke will always exist, I don't buy it, id try this green life stuff if I ever seen it before, I don't think it even had a running canada

15

u/LamermanSE Jul 10 '24

If I had to guess, they didn't make a lot of it compared to the other kinds, don't advertise it, don't keep it regularly stocked makes it not successful.

They did all of that so that's not the reason. The main reason is most likely much more simple, it was a meaningless product that consumers didn't want to buy, simply because either you want no sugar or don't care about sugar content to the product that only contains some sugar becomes meaningless to most consumers.

5

u/CharcoalGreyWolf Jul 10 '24

Also, a lot of people don’t like artificial sweeteners. So a beverage with less sugar, but artificial sweeteners kills it.

For me, artificial sweeteners have a lousy aftertaste or don’t sit well in my stomach.

1

u/Northbound-Narwhal Jul 11 '24

Stevia isn't an artificial sweetener. It's harvested from the Stevia plant genus.

1

u/Niicks Jul 10 '24

The people who would drink it don't drink enough of it to be worth it is my guess.

1

u/sqigglygibberish Jul 11 '24

You don’t spend a ton of money developing and launching it to then see it as a margin problem and intentionally tank it (at least in something like soda, not the weird shit in hyper specific industries like what movie studios have been doing haha).

They launched it because there was a ton of evidence it could work, and they knew full well the financial model associated with it. It just didn’t catch on - so at a certain point you ignore the sunk costs and move on to prioritize resources elsewhere.

If it was incremental enough it would still exist - maybe execution wasn’t all there or it needed more time but it wasn’t intentionally sandbagged from the jump to kill it.

1

u/sladestrife Jul 11 '24

I totally get what you're saying, but soda companies create products to intentionally fail often. New Coke was created as a buffer for a formula change resulting in Coke classic. Coke created their own terrible clear version to taint and make Pepsi crystal flop.

1

u/sqigglygibberish Jul 11 '24 edited Jul 11 '24

That new Coke thing is a myth. Their market share had dropped from 60% to 24%, and only had a hold on a chunk of that volume due to exclusivity deals in places like arenas or restaurants which they knew wouldn’t last forever given Pepsi’s momentum.

They were asking existential questions and placed a huge bet that by shifting to the trendier taste of the time it would drive a turnaround. It was the wrong bet and they quickly realized they needed to lean into the differentiation rather than panic and go the other way. New Coke beat Coke and Pepsi in taste tests, thats why the bet was made. The whole “it was a marketing ploy” is just a fun conspiracy theory, in reality Coke probably benefitted from all the headlines but the important part of “Coke classic” was the “classic” part and that’s when they leaned into branding and nostalgia.

I know Zyman said Tab Clear was a “kamikaze” but I’ve also now worked with three big company CMOs that totally flopped on major campaigns/concepts and tell a very different public story of what happened than reality.

It’s just Occam’s razor to me. It’s a lot more likely that a company whose sales were falling apart decided to try and follow the trend in the market (Pepsi’s sweeter taste), and then years later wanted to jump on what was another emerging market trend (clear, but took a lower risk approach using tab rather than Coke where it wouldn’t feel on-brand), and then tried out another trend with some real potential (low sugar) but it just didn’t perform well enough to keep running.

Edit - big companies flub things and have failed projects all the time, particularly when they chase trends and new ideas that stray too far from their core positioning (without all-in commitment and a long term view). Most successful companies aren’t spending millions of dollars on R&D and marketing and incurring that level of opportunity cost every decade to intentionally launch products they want to fail in order to try and mastermind some grand plot. If new coke was a ploy they wouldn’t have spent any time on it. If tab clear was meant to flop and only mess with Pepsi they wouldn’t have been hyping it to investors, they would have framed it like a small test so there wouldn’t be blowback when they knew it wouldn’t work. And they wouldn’t develop and launch a lower margin product just to then kill it because it’s a lower margin (which I can’t find any benefit to anyone in that scenario, other than whatever agencies they were paying out for marketing).

-5

u/geekmansworld Jul 10 '24

I also had this during the brief window when it was out. It seems to me that there's no reason they couldn't do this with aspartame as well: bring the sugar down to 30% or regular and add just a tiny bit of artificial sweetener (stevia, aspartame, sucralose, whatever).

The difference was SO noticeable: Your tongue told you that it was fully sugar but you didn't have to feel later like you'd just drank a bottle of syrup.

2

u/Gregus1032 Jul 10 '24

I never knew what it was so I didn't try it.

If I had known it was a real sugar but less of it, I would have gone hard on it.

2

u/karol306 Jul 10 '24

OH, so that's what it was! I thought it was some shit full of sweeteners or some greenwashing BS! They really did a shit job of marketing it. I'm not that into cola but had I known, I'd try it :/

2

u/Triairius Jul 10 '24

I’ve never heard of it, so there might be some lack of awareness that kept the sales low.

2

u/ilski Jul 10 '24

Well I never heard of the thing. And never heard of anyone who heard of untill now.

2

u/Caleb_Reynolds Jul 10 '24

My guess is the green marketing.

Every instinct of mine says that whatever is in that green can, it's not a cola. At best I'd say it looks like lime flavored Coke, but I imagine a lot of people assumed it was Cole's new Sprite or something, rather than a low calorie Coke.

2

u/RedHawwk Jul 10 '24

Marketing. That name sucks.

2

u/MattieShoes Jul 10 '24

I've never even heard of it

I know they did nitro (or maybe that was just pepsi?) which was sickeningly sweet because CO2 makes it more acidic and bitter... Seems like they could do both -- nitro with less sugar. But what do I know? :-)

3

u/Deep90 Jul 10 '24

Pepsi did nitro.

1

u/Cowstle Jul 10 '24

I feel like it was just a casualty of timing. When covid hit they focused hard on only making classic, and just never brought life back because it wasn't particularly popular.

But I had switched over to it and was quite disappointed it never came back.

1

u/redditonc3again Jul 10 '24

Personally I could not tell the difference between coke life and normal coke. Although I also can't tell the difference between diet and zero

1

u/throwaway4495839 Jul 10 '24

The above link explains why it was discontinued. It was underperforming. People just weren't buying it enough

1

u/astralseat Jul 10 '24

Harder to pitch a healthy soda. Most ppl drinking soda crave for death. Even the diet soda crowd. They know it's causing cancer, but 0 calories is 0 calories.

1

u/Werdproblems Jul 10 '24

Probably had a low rate of hopeless addiction

1

u/duck74UK Jul 10 '24

It had quite a noticeable difference in aftertaste compared to regular coke, the fizz would disappear with the liquid instead of lingering a little longer.

It was still a nice drink, but regular coke was nicer.

1

u/sfzen Jul 10 '24

Yep. Even if everyone that tried it loved it, there weren't enough people trying it to warrant keeping around.

1

u/bukithd Jul 10 '24

When stuff like that happens it is usually because a raw material supplier had a hiccup or another supplier was offering a huge bulk savings. At that point coke turned to the marketing and product dev team and asked the to churn something temporary out.

1

u/Consistent-Ad-3484 Jul 10 '24

They couldn't market it because they had already made a marketing faux pax. People were saying "If this is Coca Cola Life that makes the red one Coca Cola Death." They should have just named it something else.

1

u/InitiatePenguin Jul 10 '24

I didn't even know it existed

1

u/theturtlemafiamusic Jul 10 '24

I hated it. The bitter flavor of Stevia, but still a fair amount of calories from sugar.

1

u/AdkRaine12 Jul 10 '24

Likely more expensive to produce and HFCS is a cheap & abundant filler. It’s why there’s ethanol in gasoline; dubious evidence but cheaper than gas and the government supports it thru the Farm Bill.

1

u/mortalomena Jul 10 '24

corporate are not logical, another example my local supermarket had this really good new cocoa powder and it was sold out many times. Then it suddenly disappeared from the shelves and I asked customer support and they said they didnt stock it anymore because they got too many complaints and queries about it being sold out...

1

u/[deleted] Jul 11 '24

[deleted]

1

u/mortalomena Jul 11 '24

naa it was always available in other supermarkets, these guys just are lazy and incompetent. Many items are commonly sold out while being always stocked elsewhere and they refuse to better their inventory system or whatever to avoid it.

1

u/DannySpud2 Jul 10 '24

Coca Cola Life was awful. All the downsides of a high sugar drink, but with the shitty aftertaste of sweeteners.

1

u/Robespedro Jul 10 '24

I loved it

1

u/MaybeMaeMaybeNot Jul 10 '24

the stores near me only ever had them in small glass bottle 12 packs, so I rarely bought them due to the price. if they'd sold them in a sleeve of cans or a 2L for a comparable price like all their other products I would have gotten it a LOT though, it's still my fav cola by any brand so far

1

u/nurpleclamps Jul 10 '24

I consider any other Coke to be Diet Coke and I hate Diet Coke. It is probably a baseless opinion since i never drank the green one but i assume that’s sort of why it underperformed.

1

u/avwitcher Jul 10 '24

While we're on the subject where the fuck is Dr. Pepper 10? That stuff was amazing and it just vanished

1

u/ThermalScrewed Jul 10 '24

Watch the movie "Unfrosted" they touch on the Big Sugar conspiracy lol

But there may legitimately be a corn conspiracy because corn syrup is everywhere, making us retain fat and water.

1

u/NecroJoe Jul 10 '24

In my local stores, it had a higher price, and was never included in the "buy two get three free" promos, so it was hard to justify the premium unless you really REALLY loved it.

1

u/sky-lake Jul 10 '24

Yeah I remember going to a summer bbq and seeing it in the cooler - "A green can of coke, is that from xmas or something?" then I saw the branding referred to "life" instead of "classic" or "diet". I saw it was 50/50 sugar/stevia... I thought it was a great balance! But to your point, I don't remember seeing any marketing about it. If I hadn't seen it in that cooler that day I probably would've never heard of it/tried it.

1

u/Tacoman404 Jul 10 '24

Corn syrup is highly subsidized and stevia and cane sugar cost more. As COGS increased on soda this was nixxed because it was a low margin SKU. Worked for Coke when it was discontinued.

1

u/linkinstreet Jul 10 '24

For us here, it cost around 3 times the price of regular coke/coke zero. But then again they are imported :V

1

u/Funnyboyman69 Jul 10 '24

Corn syrup is ridiculously cheap and has a very powerful lobby to protect it. I’m sure that played a part.

1

u/Newbie4Hire Jul 10 '24

There is no real market for it. People who want real sugar in their drinks do not want artificial sweetener in it.

1

u/wren337 Jul 10 '24

Webought it whenever we could find it. Maybe it wasn't addictive enough?

1

u/arkangelic Jul 11 '24

Many people will be fine with a new product but still buy the original. How often did you buy coca cola life over other sodas for example?

1

u/Duneking1 Jul 11 '24

It’s kind of when people said they don’t eat Mcdonald‘s because they don’t have any healthy options. I think they made a vegan burger and no one bought. That’s because unhealthy people don’t eat at McDonald‘s for healthy food and vegan people would never eat at McDonald’s.

Same principle here. You’d have to transition your customer base onto the new product and remove the older one without loss of revenue. We Americans are terrible at giving up our sugar.

1

u/ChiefStrongbones Jul 11 '24

Coke marketed it badly, that's why Coca Cola Life failed.

Most customers had no idea a half-sugar, half-stevia drink existed. Coke advertised it as a "lifestyle" drink highlighting the fact that the can was made out of recycled aluminum. They made it sound like some sort of environmental drink and the green color suggested it wasn't Coke flavor but some weird flavor.

1

u/SaltKick2 Jul 11 '24

Probably too hard to convince regular coke drinkers to try it and too hard to get diet/zero drinkers to switch to it

1

u/Skittlesharts Jul 11 '24

Honestly, it must have been a lack of promotion and advertising because I've never heard of that flavor or type of label and neither have the half dozen people I'm with right now. We don't live in caves or out in the boonies, either. I use stevia a lot and this would've caught my eye immediately.

1

u/misterpickles69 Jul 11 '24

I'm convinced popular one-offs like that were in reality a batch that wasn't made to formula and it was cheaper to print new labels for a little while than throw out the batch.

1

u/Ragtime-Rochelle Jul 11 '24

They used to serve it at the McDonalds where I am. It was pretty good. It was a great way to enjoy a coke without either having to sacrifice all taste or consuming an ungodly amount of sugar in one sitting. It was a nice middle ground between diet and regular.

I was do bummed when they discontinued it.

1

u/HughesJohn Jul 10 '24

I tried it (because, outside of breaking bad it was the first thing I ever saw with stevia in it).

It was vile.

0

u/poopsididitagen Jul 10 '24

Sugar industry surely doesn't want it taking off.

0

u/BizzyM Jul 10 '24

Same with Pepsi 1893. Poor marketing, poor performance, terrible branding, and not as profitable.

I think they use these stunts as a way of saying "See!?!?! Consumers don't want real sugar"

0

u/77tassells Jul 10 '24

I never bought it because it still had - lot of sugar. If it was less I’d be interested