"pepsi" news and stories

Earth Day may not be for another month, but the folks at PepsiCo are celebrating early. The company has just announced that it has developed the world's first 100-percent plant-based PET bottle.

For those not wholly versed in enviro-speak, PET is short for polyethylene terephthalate, a.k.a. a type of plastic--or to hardcore tree-huggers everywhere, "All that is crazy and absurdly wrong with a consumer-driven society in overdrive."

Indeed, to look at the lowly plastic soda bottle, it can be hard to believe that such an eminently ubiquitous, forgettable and throwaway item could ever have become so socially and politically charged. But then again, it's precisely its unseemly propensity to pop up even the most unexpected of places that has made it increasingly loathed. After all, nothing spoils your eco-bliss like an empty Mountain Dew bottle washing against your ankles in the surf.

Diet Pepsi "Skinny" -- is the marketing around the new product smart or just plain old annoying?

During Fashion Week, a time when New York City is surrounded by beautiful and slender women, Pepsi debuted its pint-size can dubbed the "Skinny Can." Everyone had something to say about it. In fact, it might have been more controversial than J. Woww walking down the runway is almost nothing.

Fine, we get it Pepsi, go big or go home.

However, as I walked inside the Burger Bash tent yesterday afternoon, I found myself face-to-face with these cans once again. Are you serious? Out of all places to show up during Food Network's Wine and Food Festival, they chose the Burger Bash?

The Burger Bash tent is lined up with more than 25 different burger creations. Lets be real here -- drinking Diet Pepsi from their Skinny can isn't going to help you in the calorie department.

Fashion Week has yielded many surprising moments over the past week, but the one we're most interested in is legendary designer Karl Lagerfeld's strange food issues. At a recent luncheon honoring his long and influential career in fashion, a source told the Telegraph he "politely refused to eat any of the food the hosts prepared."

The luncheon was then delayed, holding up esteemed guests like Vogue editor, Anna Wintour, so that Lagerfeld could get his lunch delivered from the only place he likes: Nobu. Later, Lagerfeld could be seen with a plate "full of tuna and salmon sashimi with a delicately gloved hand," while "the fashionistas around him were gamely eating the 'normal' food," the Telegraph reports.

Lagerfeld also will only drink Pepsi Black, a rare variety of Pepsi, despite his deal with Coca Cola -- he had designed limited edition bottles for them earlier this year.

Early this month, Shaquille O'Neal officially signed with the Boston Celtics -- a move some (sports fans) view as compromising since one of their prominent rivals also happens to be his former team, the L.A. Lakers. But we here at Slashfood would like to direct your attention to a more gastronomic disturbance: his overlapping endorsements in the world of fast food and drink.

As NESN.com points out, he's played for prime rivals Pepsi and Coke, as well as Taco Bell and later Burger King.

As a rookie, Shaq started his endorsements with Pepsi, signing a five-year contract in 1993. His first ad would run during the CBS NBA playoffs to be viewed by at least half the sports-watching, soda-guzzling public. But then, during Super Bowl XLII, he made a case for Coke with his Vitaminwater® endorsement in 2008, which drove down sales for competing enhanced waters.

Look out! Demi Moore and Kevin Bacon are having a throw down, and they went on the Today Show to duke it out. There were no blows exchanged, but the two are in friendly competition to win a large donation from a new charity set up by Pepsi Cola.

It's called the Pepsi Refresh Project and this year it will award more than $20 million to different charities, which fall under six categories: Health, Arts and Culture, Food and Shelter, The Planet, Neighborhoods and Education. Anyone can apply for grant money, which ranges from five thousand dollars to $250,000. Proposals are posted online and then people can vote for their favorite ideas -- a visitor can vote for up to 10 different projects a day. Ideas can be submitted until the 15th or until Pepsi receives 1,000 applications and then voting ends at the end of the month with an announcement of winners on March 1.

According to the New York Times, this scheme is trying to tap into a trend called cause-related marketing or pro-social marketing, where big companies attempt to show they really are socially conscious and not greedy corporations.

Kevin Bacon is excited about this development. "Hopefully this is the wave of the future," he told Slashfood. "A company can use their actual ad dollars for something that not only has a positive effect for their product but a positive effect for the world."