Why is cola black

Just a few months after Blak's launch, a Wall Street analyst said consumers "are still deciding whether the product is a cola or a coffee," and a lot of them thought Blak was too expensive. Maybe Blak was a drink before its time, after all. Coca-Cola is getting back in the saddle with a new coffee-cola fusion drink that has a more straightforward name: Coca-Cola Plus Coffee. While it's offered internationally, it has yet to hit U.

Some products under development are now on hold, to keep things simple for food and beverage producers as they deal with supply-chain disruptions during the pandemic. The drink apparently never hit the market that month, which was the height of the pandemic lockdown. In any case, Coca-Cola better be on its toes in the race toward a coffee-cola fusion that actually tastes good.

This time, you're going to have to do better than "brutal. Coke reps said Blak's taste was 'not for everyone,' and they were right Facebook. That's a good thing, he added: "Sometimes consumers think that they have seen everything. Coca-Cola KO needs to keep innovating with its flagship product to succeed, and Coke Plus Coffee can help — even if it takes some getting used to.

Why Coca-Cola needs soda. Coca-Cola Plus Coffee tastes a bit like a coffee-flavored candy — as sweet as regular Coca-Cola, with an added coffee kick. And while Blak was packaged distinctly, the new drink is clearly a Coca-Cola beverage. Selling a new type of product within the signature Coke brand is important to the company. Consumer tastes are splintering. Sugar-conscious customers are turning to water, seltzer and beverages that offer a nutritional or energy boost.

Coca-Cola, which aims to be a "total beverage company," invests in a broad range of products to entice those customers. But soda remains Coca-Cola's most lucrative business. In the United States, soda "remains one of the largest non-alcoholic beverage markets," according to the summary of a recent report by the research firm Mintel. But it's a sluggish business. The carbonated soft drink market is "characterized by general stagnation rather than steep decline," Mintel noted.

To promote soda sales, Coca-Cola is shrinking cans a way to reduce calories without altering taste and launching new flavors under the Coke brand. It's also adding an energy drink. And then there's Coca-Cola Plus Coffee.

By launching new beverages under the Coca-Cola trademark, rather than as discrete new products, Coca-Cola is "leveraging the power of the Coca-Cola brand," Meza said , and delivering on the company's promise to refresh and energize consumers. It's also trying to keep people from straying away from colas by offering different variations of the company's signature product.

And with coffee, Coca-Cola hopes to capitalize on a powerful trend. Bringing coffee back. There's reason to believe that consumers are finally ready for a Coke and coffee product.

The beverage landscape has evolved since Coca-Cola tried selling Blak. Recognizing the Bloomberg administration's argument that black and Hispanic neighborhoods stood to benefit most from the ban, since those communities have the highest rates of obesity, the NAACP argued, "At its worst, the ban arbitrarily discriminates against citizens and small-business owners in African-American and Hispanic communities.

They have a point there, too. As The Atlantic Wire's own Jen Doll pointed out last year when the ban was first announced, there is an inescapable classist side of Bloomberg's ban. Then again, it's just a beverage, and this is just capitalism. Skip to content Site Navigation The Atlantic. Popular Latest. The Atlantic Crossword. Sign In Subscribe. This article is from the archive of our partner. Elsewhere in the soft drink industry, though, the oversimplification of target consumers has had its questionable if not altogether offensive moments, too.

Mountain Dew, for instance, originally based its entire brand around making fun of poor Appalachians, also known as hillbillies. In the late 40s and early 50s, its label featured the official Mountain Dew mascot "Willy the Hillbilly" and the slogan: "Ya-Hoo! Mountain Dew.