Tropicana (a wholly-owned subsidiary of PepsiCo) recently released a new juice drink product called Trop50. The sales pitch: it has 50% fewer calories and 50% less sugar than regular orange juice. I'm all in favor of reduced calorie/sugar beverages, but do the economics of this make sense?
I spotted a container of Trop50 at the store and although it is the same shape and price as the regular Tropicana ($2.96), the Trop50 package is 8% smaller by volume (64 ounces versus 59 ounces). The problem compounds when you flip the carton around and notice the statement "contains 42% juice." The back panel reveals that the primary ingredient is water, followed by reconstituted orange juice, then some vitamins, and finally stevia (a non-sugar "natural" sweetener). So Trop50 expects you to pay an 8% premium for a product that contains 58% less juice (58% more watered-down) than regular OJ?
Here's a cheaper alternative: fill your glass halfway with regular orange juice, then add water until it's full (cost per 12 oz serving: $0.28). Or, buy Trop50 (12 oz for $0.60), and pay a 117% premium for the 30 seconds it will save you in the morning.
What if you didn't know the price of the 100% juice in advance?
ReplyDeleteIn a related note, they were giving out free samples of "Vitamin Water 10" the other day, and it tasted awful. Who on earth would pay $3.00 for a bad-tasting 10 calories when they could just take a multivitamin with a glass of water?
ReplyDeleteI tried Trop50 Pomegrant/Blueberry juice recently. It tasted like watered down apple juice heavily dyed with purple coloring. I was really disgusted. I called Tropicana's(Pepsi)consumer hotline and got a rude rude customer service representative that was not the least bit interested in the voice of the consumer feedback. Instead she read me a sales pitch....Don't buy this lousy product---it is not worth a slim dime and Pepsi needs to acquire leadership in product marketing and customer facing functions.
ReplyDeleteDon't let this happen to you!
ReplyDeleteI accidentally bought "Trop50 orange juice beverage with vitamins" when I was trying to buy regular OJ. The packaging, IMHO, is very misleading, as it's nearly identical to the OJ packaging and it's in the same area. It was a shock when I tasted it; I thought Tropicana's quality control had miserably failed. This is now my third day of drinking the stuff and I just now realized that it tastes terrible because it isn't OJ.