Essay about The Future Of Soft Drinks v3

Submitted By rlp272
Words: 1282
Pages: 6

The future of soft drinks

The future of soft drinks Society today has many major environmental, economic, and health concerns that move us to take sides, right or wrong, or to the left or to the right. One that seemed to be of little importance has developed into a significant agenda in our society recently is the concern over soft drinks. The soft drink industry has been viewed to fix some of our health issues. The policy makers are pushing for incremental taxes and limiting the consumption of soft drinks. In the U.S. there has been legal involvement, political agendas on taxation, social concerns on soda consumption in our schools, and many other factors that are putting this industry on the defensive. The industry is facing an uphill battle, but trudges on to find newer and better ways of attracting and keeping its consumers. Who would have thought we would see taxation on soda because it is a health concern? We now have taxes on a discretionary item similar to candy or chocolate. Soft drinks are a drink the consumer purchases because they may enjoy this over a piece of candy or chocolate. What would be the next discretionary spending purchase a consumer will need to fork up some more cash? Significant changes have occurred with policy to created safety or wellbeing of consumers. Our seatbelt laws have changed the safety of our vehicles. An example of important policy was on the abuses of tobacco and cigarette smoking in the U.S. Policy maker’s significant reasons to change the culture or behavior of our consumers to create a safer and healthier lifestyle. Cigarette smoking has proven side effects that can give disease or disorder in one's body or health. To treat soft drinks the same way, without proven evidence to show, if you eliminate soft drinks, we eliminate obesity. Laws and policy makers could have an open door to look at the sizes of our meals, the calorie consumption of fast food meals, candy, chocolate, and many other foods. New York City tried to ban the size of a soft drink a customer can buy to only 16 ounces. The plan failed because the judge found other beverages of much higher sugar concentrations and the ability of consumers to get refills. Policy makers need to be proactive in enabling customers to make good and wise decision on our health, not playing big brother. Here we see a classic example of the overreach of our government and policymakers. Measures have been taken by the industry to create based on social response to what the customer demands. Demand for carbonated soft drinks (CSDs) has been on the decline over the years. The decline in CSDs was not because of government intervention or policymaking; it was the social awareness of people's health and the changes in the cultural attitude towards CSDs and sugary substances in general. PepsiCo has had a decline of 14% in over four years from its large format category. Large format category consists of your supermarkets and wholesalers. The decline is a trend the company has seen over the years and has invested in many other categories of drinks that are what the consumer is demanding. Investments in our coffee, tea, flavored water, sports drinks, energy drinks, and organic or healthy conscious drinks are new lines that are what society is trending too. Government did not need to get involved to change the minds of our society, but an awareness of health has done that. Our society recently is much more of a health conscious culture, and this along has educated the consumer on the good and bad of drinking soft drinks. Our society is not eliminating the consumption of soda drinking; they are drinking it in moderation and replacing soft drinks with other drinks that are emerging. Our culture has decided to go down this route, with or without policy making. The CSD business has also raised significant questions on business ethics. Is selling soft drinks ethically wrong? We look at social media; news feeds,