Forget yoga — India now has a whole new way to keep its energy up. Yes, Starbucks has just opened its first store in the market.

While the drinks list at the world’s newest Starbucks will look pretty familiar to anybody who has ordered a grande skim latte elsewhere on the planet, the food features no beef or pork and a lot of old faves with local twists, such as a chicken tikka panini sandwich, a croissant with cardamom and the milk-based sweet mawa, according to the Wall Street Journal. In a sign of respect for its vegetarian customers, the non-veg food items will be sold at another counter and prepared in a completely different oven.

The world’s largest coffee chain is expanding into the world’s second-most populated country with the help of India's venerable Tata Group just as revenues in America are slowing, and the number of India’s consumers of coffee is nearly twice what it was a decade ago.Continue reading...

Slowly and perhaps surely, it looks like Pepsi is coming back against Coke in North America. By the time Beyonce headlines the Pepsi-sponsored halftime show during the telecast of the next Super Bowl in February, the brand may be celebrating more than her performance.

Pepsi had flat sales volume when taking into account a calendar shift during the third quarter, company executives told analysts on a conference call on Wednesday, but market share improved by volume and dollars. It's one of the first tangible signs that a significant recommitment to the brand by PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi, launched last year, is gaining some traction.

At the same time, Nooyi told the analysts that PepsiCo's overall organic revenue was only flat during the period on a 3-percent decline in volume, which she blamed on a 7-percent volume drop in non-carbonated drinks that on longer were profitable. "It's important that we don't chase unprofitable businesses and unprofitable categories," she said, according to the Wall Street Journal.Continue reading...

It's all the rage now for makers of better-for-you beverages, both startups and mainstream CPG companies, to offer a variety of elixirs within an overall product line that are each aimed specifically at some perceived nutritional need or function. "Energy," "Immunity," and "Relaxation" are the typical needs addressed by new products, ranging from enhanced waters to teas.

Now, Coca-Cola is entering this fray in a new way, initially in France. It has entered a 50/50 joint venture with Sanofi, the French pharmaceutical maker, to sell "beauty drinks" at French pharmacies, each of which is aimed at particular beauty concerns of women. The test is meant as a diversification proposition by both Coke and Sanofi, the latter of which is turning increasingly to consumer-health-care products from drugs per se.

The first four drinks under the Beautific brand name of beverages, which will be produced by Sanofi's Oenobiol unit, will be marketed as boosting hair, weight loss, sun exposure and general vitality, according to Bloomberg. Coca-Cola will handle formulation and Sanofi the local distribution.Continue reading...

Like specialty food trucks, vending machines seem to be having a little bit of a resurgence in the past few years. You’ve got your cupcake vending machine; a machine that will spin cotton candy for you right there; and Pepsi's next generation vending machine will charge your mobile device, send virtual gifts, and allow you to play games.

Now, through the wonders of modern technology, Coke has built webcams and Microsoft Kinect sensors into some of its vending machines so that it can give free colas to anybody who shakes a tailfeather for it, according to SingularityHub.com.

The whole effort has been helped by the efforts of South Korean boy band 2PM, whose virtual selves help lead consumers through some dance moves that will result in some caffeine at no charge. Sweet.

What's next for Pepsi NEXT? Finding time to drive sampling for time-pressed consumers and creating those mid-calorie believers we talked about back in March. As Mashable notes and the Barbarian Group, the agency behind the campaign, blogged, the new sub-brand from PepsiCo is looking to help deliver on its tagline of "Drink It to Believe It" by creating time to check it out for 200 consumers. Partnering with life-hacking/productivity site/app TaskRabbit.

For four weeks, from now through Nov. 12, Pepsi NEXT lovers (or just plain curious) can sign up for a chance to be one of 50 U.S. participants each week selected to get their very own "TaskRabbit," a personal assistant to whom they can outsource one task (such as waiting in line or walking a dog) for one hour. The fully-vetted assistant will, of course, arrive with a Pepsi NEXT in hand for the winner to enjoy during their hour off.Continue reading...

A Tokyo pop-up has taken the Starbucks retail store concept to a futuristic, minimalist place that could shake up the java giant's global development team to rethink everything they hold dear about the brand.

Inspired by coffee-lovers' penchant for reading while sipping, Japanese design studio Nendo created a "Starbucks Espresso Journey" pop-up that looks, on the surface, like a monochromatic library — until you notice the rows of tumblers and the subtle take on Starbucks' wordless logo. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves comprised the curved interior walls as customers perused custom-made books in nine different hues, each about a different type of espresso drink - lattes, cappuccinos or café mochas.

The desaturated shop was installed in September in the Omotesando neighborhood and open for three weeks. Visitors were invited to choose a book, take it to the counter and trade it for an espresso drink. They could also keep the book cover to insert into one of Starbucks’ customizable tumblers. It's visually stunning and upends every expectation we bring to the Starbucks brand experience, to be sure, but still — a library?Continue reading...

When Jon Stewart and Bill O’Reilly faced off Saturday in a mock debate, the topic of whether the government should decide what size soda consumers should drink was brought up and summarily dismissed, but there are plenty of other folks — like New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg — who aren’t letting the issue go.

The just-passed law that Bloomberg pushed to help keep New Yorkers healthy by making it illegal to sell sodas larger than 16 oz. in many New York establishments will go into effect on March 12. And Bloomberg isn’t alone. A soda-tax measure was put on the ballot in Richmond, California, that would discourage consumers from drinking soda and collect money through a soda tax “for neighborhood gardens, recreation and other youth projects that would help fight childhood obesity,” BeyondChron.com reports.

Sick of being called a bad guy in the war against obesity, the American Beverage Association (and the soda giants it represents) today launched a "Calories Count" vending machine program that will start being distributed in the new year. The ABA's new initiative will help consumers identify lower-calorie sodas in vending machines by placing soda calorie counts right on the buttons of vending machines.Continue reading...

Now that PepsiCo has begun marketing in its flagship Pepsi brand in a much more significant way this year, investors, analysts and other pundits are giving PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi the benefit of the doubt as she continues to unfold her strategy for making the company a major player in better-for-you markets rather than just a traditional purveyor of snack foods and soda beverages. From Australia to India, from vending machines to sweeteners to ad agencies, PepsiCo is pushing to innovate.

Case in point: PepsiCo just announced a pilot rollout of its Pepsi Interactive Vending machine pilot program, allowing consumers in a handful of U.S. locations to not only buy a beverage, but also send virtual gifts, play games and even charge their mobile devices. In addition to buying a Pepsi, Mountain Dew, Sierra Mist Natural, Aquafina or Lipton Green Tea, users can also gift a 20-ounce bottled beverage to a friend by entering the recipient's name and email along with a personalized message. That person, in turn, can send a gift back to the gift-giver — or pay it forward by sending their own gift to another friend.

The next-generation social vending machine is "part of a broader global platform of equipment innovation we're developing to engage consumers," stated Mikel Durham, PepsiCo's Global Growth officer. "The pilot launch of our Interactive Vending equipment is an exciting step in transforming the point-of-purchase experience," added Margery Schelling, the company's Global Innovation officer.Continue reading...