Highway to health

Prepared Foods, July, 2004

Two of the world's largest beverage companies have moved into healthful territory of late. Sometime this summer, Coca-Cola (Atlanta) will launch C2, promising half the calories, carbohydrates and sugar of regular Coke, and Pepsi's (Purchase, N.Y.) similarly described Edge hit store shelves in mid-June. However, the pair are taking the health-conscious battle beyond the carbonated arena.

Both have introduced low-carbohydrate orange juice in recent months, the most recent being Coca-Cola's Minute Maid Light. It may be orange juice, but the selling point remains much the same: half the calories and sugar of regular orange juice (50 calories and 10g of sugar per 8oz. serving).

Coke's offering follows on the heels of Pepsi's success with Tropicana Light 'n Healthy, regarded as the company's biggest new product hit in a decade. Touting a reduction in calories, carbohydrates and sugars, Light 'n Healthy garnered nearly $8 billion in sales during its first 16 weeks on the market, so successful that the company has announced plans to take the label into shelf-stable packaging.