As the alt-soda category has grown over the past decade, the success of main brands Poppi and Olipop has been largely parallel, with one slight separation: the emphasis on functionality. While Olipop has hewed closer to the core functional roots that stem from its added prebiotic ingredients, Poppi has gradually moved away from them.
First, it dropped kombucha-evocative “Mother Beverage” as its name, then made the intentional move toward “modern soda” rather than lean on its fiber content. Meanwhile, Olipop, until recently, made a point of requiring its products to stay within the cold chain to better maintain its functionality.
Still, even though Poppi seemed to grow away from stressing its functional formulation, gut health was the taproot for the entire Modern Soda category; that was clear enough all the way up to this March, as both Pepsi and Coke prepared their own prebiotic-enhanced Olipop, Poppi and Culture Pop fighter brands to compete in the Walmart-engineered set (yes, Zevia is there, the exception that proves the rule).
PepsiCo’s withdrawal of its Soulboost brand from that set in March, in fact, was the big signal to the industry that it was about to finally consummate its long-speculated courtship with Poppi. That also put Soulboost back in the proverbial casket, and would seem to have satisfied PepsiCo’s need for this generation of functionality.
Surprise, though: according to PepsiCo U.S. beverage CEO Ram Krishnan, the company had been working on Pepsi Probiotic for several years, looking to get the right combo of sweeteners and fiber into a version of the flagship cola.
With Poppi aboard, though, the idea of lifting two new major products feels a little bit like the company is trying to have its probiotic cake and eat it too. Is it a play to drag the Gen X and Boomer generations into this gut health realm they’ve heard so much about? A way to provide price support to Poppi’s premium position while also coasting behind the growth of the more functionally positioned Olipop? Or has PepsiCo decided that functional sodas are going to be the through line for all CSDs over the long term?
Hard to tell, but what’s clear is that we’ll soon get a reading on what brings consumers to the modern soda category: the function or the fun. The success rate of legacy brands like Pepsi or Coke fully leaning into a functional category is not high: consider the brief, ugly life of Coca-Cola Energy, for example. If Pepsi Prebiotic Cola (rolls trippingly off the tongue, huh?) succeeds, Coca-Folate and Dr Prebiotic won’t be far behind. But if it’s just that magic that comes with novelty, we’ll see that the next Pepsi Generation really is Poppi’s.