A change is coming to Western Carolina University. Pepsi, a company of PepsiCo, is one of the world’s largest food and beverage companies, and now it will find a home here on campus.
The makers of Pepsi, Gatorade, Tropicana, and Mountain Dew, PepsiCo has won the contract over Coca-Cola for distribution rights at WCU.
Danya Cope, Assistant Food Service Director at Western Carolina said that they “will start the transition slowly, moving out a few coolers at a time. The process should be finished by the end of July.”
With innovations such as the world’s first climate friendly vending machines, and healthy snacks, the PepsiCo has seen its stocks rise despite the negative economic trends that the United States is faced with. There are also positive reviews with the Pepsi-Cola and Mountain Dew Throwback drinks which feature designs from the 1970’s and 1980’s as well as using real cane sugar instead of corn syrup.
These drinks hope to help taste opinions such as the ones that Carter Grice, Psychology major and graduating senior at Western Carolina University gathered.
“In a well designed experiment for Psychology 272, we found no significant difference between Coke and Pepsi across three variables: sweetness, aftertaste, and general liking,” said Grice. However, a double blind study at Lewis & Clark College revealed that people did in fact prefer the taste of Pepsi over the taste of Coke. While this shows that there is no one answer on which one is best, depending on who you ask and where you go, the over-all attitude on campus is a positive one. Student Tyler Glovier said, “Pepsi is good. It’s nice to have a change once in a while.” Another student, Mike Hinkle said, “I’m straight with it. I like the taste of Pepsi better.”
Pepsi is also affiliated with Live Earth, an environmental organization, City Year, an organization that lets young people volunteer in city schools and neighborhoods, and Do Something.org which lets young people pick from a variety of causes to help.
While some still like the taste of Coca-Cola, there seems to be more Pepsi lovers, for now, at Western Carolina and across the U.S. PepsiCo, for the first time in their history, recently made a slight gain on the Coca-Cola Company and why their stock has recently risen during the current economy.
PepsiCo Chairman and CEO Indra Nooyi said in a recent press release, “Even in this difficult economy, we are committed to return cash to our shareholders while continuing to invest in the long-term growth of our business.”
