Well it's blogging time again, and today i'm introducing a new blog series called Lookin at Food, where I take a look at a food that I’ve tried and discuss my thoughts on it. I previously did an entry with this title where I looked at Fruit Brute, a cereal from the 1970s that I got to try for the first time and discussed it’s history and what I thought about it, Today I’m looking at a soda that was created as a replacement for another soda both to complete with another soda and appeal to the modern generation, and that soda is Starry.
Introduced on January 1, 2023, Starry is a lemon lime soda sold by Pepsico both to replace Sierra Mist and to appeal to a Generation Z.
While the soda has a mixed reception of both positive and negative reactions, my reaction to it is befuddlement and confusion. Every time I look at a glass of Starry, I end up raising my eyebrow.
Now I know what your thinking, What is it about this soda that leaves you feeling so befuddled Ryan? Well my dear reader, I will go over a 2 main issues I have with this soda.
Problem #1: Pepsi has had many Lemon Lime sodas prior to Starry
Yes, even before Sierra mist, the soda that Starry was meant to replace, Pepsi had sold not 1, not 2, but 3 different Lemon lime sodas prior to Sierra mist and making a total of 4 before Starry! Thats right, its not just Sierra Mist that sold before Starry, no there a whole timeline of Lemon Lime sodas from Pepsi that stretch back to the last 64 years!
The first soda was Teem it was introduced on April 10, 1959 in St. Joseph, Missouri and followed to the rest of the country a few days later on April 13.
Originally, the soda was going to be called Duet, but there was already a margarine under the same name, so they changed it to Teem. Why they called it that is unknown, but my theory is that it refers to the "Team up" of lemon and lime flavors, and why it's spelled T-e-e-m, rather than T-e-a-m, is meant to refer to the e's in lemon and lime.
Either way, the soda was a decent success, being sold from 1959 to 1984. Some sources say that it was available in some certain soda fountains into the 1990s, but this is unconfirmed. It is apparently however still sold in other countries such as Brazil, Uruguay, Honduras, Nepal, Nigeria, India, Pakistan, and South Africa.
The second soda was Slice, it was introduced in 1984 as a replacement for Teem, a direct competitor to Sprite and 7-Up, and is probably the soda most people think about when they think of when they think about the soda that predated Sierra Mist. The main distinguishing characteristic it had at the time compared to other lemon lime sodas on the market was the fact that it contained 10% fruit juice, even going so far as to use this as a slogan stating "We got the juice".
The soda was also a success, and even inspiring other companies to created they're own juice-infused drinks based on already existing juice brands, such as Coca-Cola's Minute Maid orange soda and Cadbury Schweppes's Sunkist. They also introduced other flavors, such as a diet version in 1985, a Mandarin Orange flavor, an Apple flavor, and a Cherry flavor in 1986, and various other flavors such as Fruit punch, Grape, Passionfruit, Peach, Pineapple, Pink Lemonade, Strawberry and even a Dr Pepper-like Dr Slice throughout the 1990s.
While the lemon lime Slice was discontinued in 2000, the various other flavors of Slice continued to be sold as late as 2011 in some stores. The soda did also make 2 comebacks both as a failed lower-sugar, lower-calorie juice beverage in 2018, and as a proper soda in 2022.
The third and probably shortest lived of these was Storm, introduced in 1998. The reason it was short lived was because it never made its way out of the test market phase. It was also different compared to other lemon lime sodas on the market as it was only lightly carbonated, contained caffeine, and it had a very faint lemon lime flavor with some bitterness to it, kind of like Schweppes's bitter lemon I suppose.
The soda was only sold in Denver, Indianapolis, Omaha, San Francisco, Sacramento, Grass Valley Las Vegas, Milwaukee, and Philadelphia areas and was discontinued in 2000.
Sierra Mist came on to the scene on May 7, 1999 and outlive both Slice and Storm before Starry would come along in 2023, which leads us to the present day.
Are you starting to see a problem yet? Pepsico has marketed 5 different lemon lime sodas over a period of 64 years, and most of them don't seem to last past 25 years or so. In fact,depending on which state you lived in, in 1999 you could have got Sierra Mist, Storm, or Slice at the same time, Which I can't imagine that making retailers very happy as they had to stock 3 different sodas with the same flavor from the same manufacturer! So what would be the point of making a new lemon lime soda when you've had 4 different ones in the past?
Problem #2: It's marketing specifically toward Gen Z
Now, I understand that you need to market product to appeal to a current generation of people, you can't just market a product that looks outdated and expect it to sell well. however, I cant help but feel that marketing to Gen Z and Gen Z only would contribute to the longevity of said product. There's only one other soda I know of that did something similar to this, and that was a soda called O.K. which was launched by Pepsi's rival Coca-Cola in a few test markets in 1993 and was targeting Gen X consumers, and that soda never made it out of the test market phase. Now Obviously I know that targeting Gen X probably wasn't the reason for O.K.'s failure in the test market, but i'm sure that even if it had been launched nationwide, I can't help but feel marketing to one specific generation would have let it survive past the new millennium.
The idea is that marketing to Gen Z will give them about a 5% to 10% market share increase. But considering the numbers, in my eyes doesn't seem like that much. In 2022, Sierra mist placed 3rd place within the Lemon lime soda market, with Sprite leading the pack at 73%, 7up at 14% and Sierra Mist accounting for only 7% of market share.
Even if they were to capture that amount, that would only put them at around 12% to 17% of market share which doesn't seem like that much, that's only slightly higher than 7up, and would still leave Sprite with 68% to 63% of the market.
There's also something to be said about sticking with Gen Z aesthetics, if you were to stick with these kind of aesthetics and designs for products and not appealing to other markets that come along in the coming years, they'll pretty much be stuck back in the 2020's.
Now, these issues aside, What does the soda actually taste like? Well, it tastes pretty good, Its what you expect from a lemon lime soda, sweet and citrusy. It's certainly the closest to Sprite that Pepsico's gotten to a lemon lime soda to taste like.
Overall, despite my gripes, Starry isn't bad. It's got a decent taste and i'm sure Sprite fans wouldn't mind having a swig if they get the chance. But I can't help but wonder why Pepsico didn't just simply reformulate Sierra Mist and change the marketing. I feel it would be cheaper (Or about the same price) than just launching a whole new soda from the ground up. All can say is it's just another mystery about the behind the scenes of modern businesses. Thanks for reading and i'll see you next time!