Making Pepsi Beverages Is Serious Business

The first half of Pepsi Innovation Day focused on the actual product at hand, namely the beverages of the Pepsi family. An interesting side note is that Pepsi makes more than half of its revenue off its food division; it’s the fourth largest company in the world.

Visiting the R & D department gave us a glimpse of just how much work it takes to make a mass produced beverage. There is a team of awesome food scientists; people who’s job is to come up with the perfect combinations of tastes and colors. The color doctor (and yes, she is a real doctor with a PhD in chemistry) gave a fascinating explanation of her work: how we taste with our eyes before our mouths, and how culture influences what colors drinks should be. One example she gave was the Chinese market, who rejected an apple juice drink because its color was associated with whiskey. Once the color was changed to a light green, the apple juice took off. Check out a brief snippet of the color doctor’s talk below:

Another fun drink related activity was being given the chance to make our own soda. Unfortunately for the health concious, this involved using a giant vat of high fructose corn syrup. To their credit, Pepsi does appear to be attempting to use alternatives, Stevia, a product formerly relegated to health food freaks only, is now being used in several of their beverages. Here is a Pepsi scientist explaining just how to make the base for a soda (mine was grapefruit, mango & lime. )

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