Diet Mountain Dew®, Brisk® and Starbucks® Ready-To-Drink Beverages Grow to be Billion-Dollar Brands for PepsiCo

PURCHASE, N.Y., Jan. 26, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- PepsiCo (NYSE: PEP) today announced that Diet Mountain Dew, Brisk and Starbucks ready-to-drink (RTD) beverages have each grown to more than $1 billion in annual retail sales, expanding PepsiCo's portfolio of billion-dollar brands to 22.  PepsiCo offers the world's largest portfolio of billion-dollar food and beverage brands. 

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PHOTOS:  PepsiCo's Newest Billion-Dollar Brands - multimedia.pepsico.com/public/asset_id/1731
PepsiCo's Billion-Dollar Brand Portfolio - multimedia.pepsico.com/public/asset_id/1718

The growth of Diet Mountain Dew, Brisk and Starbucks RTD beverages continues PepsiCo's successful efforts to build many of the world's most loved food and beverage brands. With just a rip, twist, flip or tear, consumers in over 200 countries around the world are refreshed, rejuvenated and restored by PepsiCo products every day.

The company has doubled the size of its billion-dollar brand portfolio since 2000, adding five new billion-dollar brands in the past five years.  PepsiCo has manufactured and distributed Brisk and Starbucks RTD beverages through successful joint venture partnerships with Unilever and Starbucks, respectively, since the early 1990s.

"PepsiCo is a global food and beverage company with products that are loved and consumed around the world more than a billion times a day," said PepsiCo Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Indra K. Nooyi.  "Our ability to accelerate the growth of our billion-dollar brand portfolio with Diet Mountain Dew, Brisk and Starbucks reflects the success of our product marketing and innovation initiatives, the strength of our joint venture partnerships and the power of our distribution systems.  It's a proud achievement shared by the entire PepsiCo family, and we remain laser focused on continuing to strengthen and grow our entire global brand portfolio."

First introduced in 1988, Diet Mountain Dew became the company's eighth carbonated soft drink brand to reach the billion-dollar annual retail sales milestone.  Diet Mountain Dew, which has achieved record levels of fan engagement via NASCAR driver sponsorships, college basketball and other consumer programs, has seen volume more than double in the past 10 years.   In the U.S., Diet Mountain Dew is the number one 20 oz. diet soft drink, by volume, in the profitable convenience and gas retail channel.  

VIDEO:  Brett O'Brien, Vice President Marketing, Mountain Dew - Pepsicoblogs.com/dietmtndew

Brisk has seen particularly strong growth in the U.S., with approximately 30 percent volume growth over the past three years.  Brisk, which recently kicked off its multi-media Star Wars partnership, is sold under the Pepsi Lipton Tea Partnership, a successful joint venture formed between PepsiCo and Unilever in 1991 focused on manufacturing and marketing ready-to-drink tea beverages.  PepsiCo, through the Pepsi Lipton Tea Partnership, is the RTD tea category leader in several markets around the world, including the U.S. and Western and Eastern Europe.

VIDEO:  Mary Barnard, Vice President and General Manager, Pepsi Lipton Tea Partnership - Pepsicoblogs.com/brisk

PepsiCo and Starbucks largely created the North American RTD coffee category in 1994 when they formed the North American Coffee Partnership, a successful joint venture under which PepsiCo manufactures and distributes Starbucks RTD, single-serve coffee beverages.  The Starbucks brand is the clear leader in its category, with more than 90 percent share of the RTD coffee segment in the U.S.  In addition to bottled Frappuccino® beverages, the largest product line in the Starbucks RTD portfolio, PepsiCo has successfully introduced new product innovations such as Starbucks Doubleshot® Energy+Coffee.

VIDEO:  Seth Kaufman, Vice President and General Manager, North American Coffee Partnership - Pepsicoblogs.com/starbucksrtd

To celebrate today's milestone, PepsiCo placed advertising welcoming these three new brands to its billion-dollar brand portfolio in the Financial Times, The New York Times, USA Today and The Wall Street Journal.

The growth of Diet Mountain Dew, Brisk and Starbucks RTD beverages gives PepsiCo 14 billion-dollar beverage brands.  According to Information Resources, Inc. data, PepsiCo has three of the top six food and beverage trademarks in retail sales in the U.S., with its Pepsi-Cola®, Mountain Dew® and Gatorade® brands.  PepsiCo also has eight billion-dollar food brands, the largest of which is Lay's®.  The growth of the Lay's portfolio has been driven by expansion in many international markets, including several key emerging economies like Russia, where Lay's is getting ready to celebrate its 20th anniversary.

The company's billion-dollar brand portfolio is comprised of: Aquafina®, Brisk®, Cheetos®, Diet Mountain Dew®, Diet Pepsi®, Doritos®, Fritos®, Gatorade®, Lay's®, Lipton®, Mirinda®, Mountain Dew®, Pepsi®, Pepsi Max®, Ruffles®, Quaker®, 7UP® (outside the U.S.),  Sierra Mist®, Starbucks® RTD beverages, Tostitos®, Tropicana® and Walkers®. 

About PepsiCo
PepsiCo offers the world's largest portfolio of billion-dollar food and beverage brands, including 22 different product lines that generate more than $1 billion in annual retail sales each. Our main businesses -- Quaker, Tropicana, Gatorade, Frito-Lay, and Pepsi Cola -- also make hundreds of other enjoyable foods and beverages that are respected household names throughout the world. With net revenues of approximately $60 billion, PepsiCo's people are united by our unique commitment to sustainable growth by investing in a healthier future for people and our planet, which we believe also means a more successful future for PepsiCo. We call this commitment Performance with Purpose: PepsiCo's promise to provide a wide range of foods and beverages for local tastes; to find innovative ways to minimize our impact on the environment, including by conserving energy and water usage, and reducing packaging volume; to provide a great workplace for our associates; and to respect, support, and invest in the local communities where we operate. For more information, please visit www.pepsico.com.

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PepsiCo Cautionary Statement
Statements in this communication by PepsiCo that are "forward-looking statements" are based on currently available information, operating plans and projections about future events and trends.  They inherently involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those predicted in such forward-looking statements.  Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to: changes in demand for PepsiCo's products, as a result of changes in consumer preferences and tastes or otherwise; damage to PepsiCo's reputation; PepsiCo's ability to grow its business in developing and emerging markets or unstable political conditions, civil unrest or other developments and risks in the countries where PepsiCo operates; trade consolidation or the loss of any key customer; changes in the legal and regulatory environment; PepsiCo's ability to build and sustain proper information technology infrastructure, successfully implement its ongoing business transformation initiative or outsource certain functions effectively; unfavorable economic conditions in the countries in which PepsiCo operates; fluctuations in foreign exchange rates; PepsiCo's ability to compete effectively; increased costs, disruption of supply or shortages of raw materials and other supplies; disruption of PepsiCo's supply chain; climate change, or legal, regulatory or market measures to address climate change; PepsiCo's ability to hire or retain key employees or a highly skilled and diverse workforce; failure to successfully renew collective bargaining agreements or strikes or work stoppages; and failure to successfully complete or integrate acquisitions and joint ventures into PepsiCo's existing operations.

For additional information on these and other factors that could cause PepsiCo's actual results to materially differ from those set forth herein, please see PepsiCo's filings with the SEC, including its most recent annual report on Form 10-K and subsequent reports on Forms 10-Q and 8-K. Investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on any such forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date they are made. PepsiCo undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

About Diet Mountain Dew
Diet Mountain Dew offers consumers the great one-of-a-kind citrus taste of Mountain Dew without the calories. In addition to original Mountain Dew  and Diet Mountain Dew, the permanent DEW product line includes Mountain Dew Baja Blast®, Mountain Dew Code Red®, Mountain Dew Livewire®, Mountain Dew Throwback®, Mountain Dew Voltage® and Mountain Dew White Out.

For more information, check out www.mountaindew.com or www.facebook.com/dietdew or on twitter @mtn_dew.

About Brisk
Brisk® is a product of the Pepsi Lipton Tea Partnership, a joint venture between PepsiCo and Unilever. The Brisk line-up of iced teas and juice drinks includes Lemon Iced Tea, No-Cal Lemon Iced Tea, Tea-Lemonade, Raspberry Iced Tea, Peach Iced Green Tea, Sweet Tea, Fruit Punch, Lemonade Sugar-Free Lemonade and Strawberry Melon.

About the North American Coffee Partnership
The North American Coffee Partnership is a joint venture between Pepsi-Cola North America and a subsidiary of Starbucks Coffee Company. Its products include bottled Frappuccino®, Starbucks Doubleshot® and Doubleshot® Energy + Coffee drinks.

SOURCE PepsiCo