In fact I've picked on PepsiCo far less than I have on Coca-Cola over the years because for the most part, PepsiCo hasn't cynically pretended that health mattered to them as vocally as has Coca-Cola.
For PepsiCo, health was always about sales. They simply wanted to make money selling less awful junk food.
Well, that hasn't worked out so well, and so PepsiCo, in a 3rd quarter investors meeting a few weeks ago, did as companies do when faced with disappointing sales figures - they pledged to increase their marketing of their flagship sugary beverages (Pepsi and Mountain Dew).
This shouldn't surprise anyone.
PepsiCo's job is to maximize their profits, and while there may be times when profits and public health collide, if they don't, PepsiCo will protect their interests, not yours and mine.
And this post comes with a serving of especially delicious irony in that just one day after PepsiCo's announcement that they were going to pump their sugary fare, PepsiCo's VP of marketing Gary So published this piece on Medium about how great PepsiCo's commitment is to reducing the consumption of calories and sugar from beverages.
As I've said before, the food industry is neither friend, nor foe, nor partner.
[Thanks to Consumerist Community Editor Laura Northrup for pointing me to the AP piece]
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