The siren song — or is that a moo? — of dairy drinks continues to draw America's soft-drink giants deeper into investments in milk-based products. Coca-Cola has today announced an equity investment in a new company that has been formed to market Core Power, a dairy-based recovery brand that the company began distributing a few months ago.

In fact, Coke said, through the newly created Fair Oaks Farms Brands, it plans to help "drive growth and expansion of Core Power and to create an innovative portfolio of brands and products that feature the value-added nutrition of dairy." Fair Oaks Farms and Select Milk Producers, Coke's partners in the new venture, came up with Core Power, and the high protein recover shake brand is run by former Coca-Cola executive Steve Jones.Continue reading...

The need for jobs in a job-starved America can create some interesting political dynamics. Witness how New York Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo is going out of his way today to praise practically every other politician in the state for having anything to do with bringing new PepsiCo jobs in yogurt-making to upstate — and implicitly thumbling his nose at New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has put PepsiCo on the Most Wanted list with his proposed big-soda ban.

"This is a new New York State, partnering with the private sector to create jobs and grow new industries," Cuomo said in a PepsiCo press release today. He's been notably lauded even by some Republicans for making economic development (tagline: "New York - Open for Business") a priority of his administration, including a high-profile TV campaign promoting economic investments in New York State, with not only PepsiCo but Fage bringing their yogurt works to upstate New York.Continue reading...

It may be too early to say the cola wars are over, although it's clear that PepsiCo is ready and willing to take on another archrival. Following years of competing with Coca-Cola with its array of beverage and snack food brands in the U.S., PepsiCo is now getting into the red-hot yogurt market and adding Dannon to its competitive set.

Faced with a U.S. yogurt market that is more crowded than ever with brands, and demonstrating almost no growth except in the Greek yogurt category, PepsiCo announced Monday that it's introducing a fresh brand to yogurt-loving Americans — and one that isn't focusing on Greek — via a new partnership with the Theo Muller Group, Germany's largest privately held dairy

That's the prospect for Muller Quaker Dairy when it finally enters stores in northeastern and mid-Atlantic states with three lines of yogurt products birthed by the joint venture. Muller Quaker promises "innovative premium" products that aim to create differentiation and taste excitement in a U.S. yogurt category that PepsiCo executives believe is lacking both.

"It's been an 'I gotta have it because it's good for me' kind of a product," Dr. Mehmood Khan, who oversees PepsiCo's global research and development, commented to the New York Times. "The 'wanna have it' was missing."Continue reading...

Müller's drops some LSD, gets in a time machine back to your childhood. (via)

USA Today will "rebrand" the way it measures Super Bowl ads by incorporating Facebook.Continue reading...