Fast Food/Takeaways and Restaurants

This will all be to do with the number of pumps/lines the stores have with new flavours and brands becoming popular.

Does Australia not have the Coke “Freestyle” machine anywhere? Australia not mentioned on Wikipedia and I don’t remember seeing it when I have been there.

That thing is everywhere in the US and supposedly has 165 flavour combinations in it. Many fast food restaurants here have it. McDonalds probably the exception since they always do their own thing but the others mostly have it, at least from what I have seen.

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Is this even sold in Australia anymore?

I’ve seen it a couple of times (a Subway?), but not sure, surely five guys do? They are common in the UK too.

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I miss Diet Coke with Lemon which was sold here around 20 years ago. Still my favourite Coke variant.

From memory they also had lime?

Yeah, I think at some point around that same period they did. During summer 13/14 they did a run of regular Coke with Lemon that I tried once and didn’t like at all. Remember it being way too sweet.

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Coke Zero became Coke No Sugar but then they changed the recipe (ie. chemicals). Many still call it Coke Zero though.

Now that they’ve decided to change Sprite No Sugar to Sprite Zero Sugar, it’s only a matter of time Coke No Sugar becomes Coke Zero Sugar.

I did drink Diet Coke years ago but hate the taste now. Coke No Sugar is alright but Pepsi Max slays them all.

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Jesus, I cant keep up… I sometimes still order ‘coke zero’ out of habit.

I think everyone would know what you mean though.

I never understood why Coca Cola wanted to drop the “Zero” branding for sugar free. Maybe they kept changing because they just couldn’t catch up to Pepsi Max and blamed the branding.

Zero was popular and widely used. Since they dropped it, many rivals started using it instead. They’re now backtracking.

I thought it had something to with aligning the overseas brand.

I believe the Zero branding was successful here (Australia / NZ), but not in other parts of the world.

Could be wrong though.

It’s Australia that seems to be out of step with the name. Australia and New Zealand changed it to Coke No Sugar in 2017.

In the US, it was introduced in 2005 as Coke Zero. It was reformulated on 2017 and renamed Coke Zero Sugar. In 2021, it was reformulated again to the same recipe as Europe and Latin America.

It was Coke Zero in Europe and the UK. It started changing to Coke Zero Sugar from 2016.

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Coke Zero used to give me acid reflux… Coke No Sugar doesn’t (thankfully).

I’m glad they reformulated it.

Who remembers Pepsi blue?

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As shortlived as Pepsi Clear.

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Does Pepsi Max outsell Coke No Sugar in Australia? I would assume Pepsi Max would outsell original Pepsi in Australia.

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That was about 20 years ago, I think it’s still made in certain countries or at least it was a few years ago.

I feel like at one point Pepsi Max was very popular and the goto sugar-free cola about 15 years ago.

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In the early days, Pepsi Max was selling about the same as Coke Zero. I think there have been times both have pulled ahead of the other.

Maybe the rebrand happened when Max was ahead of Zero.

Hope this isn’t too off topic but it is related to diet soda drinks in general. For those who drink diet sodas to avoid calories, it is worth checking out the latest information from research and what nutritionists are saying. There is some evidence that there there are minimal weight loss/maintenance benefits and there is also research around the negative side effects of diet sodas. Some diet experts say if you are going to have a soda, have a full sugar one - it’s healthier!

Not wanting to preach, but it’s worth doing some checking if you are interested.

Here is one page to start with as a summary.

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I think everyone knows what you mean though, unlike when I ordered ‘Coke No Sugar’ in a country where it was ‘Coke Zero Sugar’ and they were very confused.

Such a marketing shot in the foot. I’m sure they could have done the slight change in formula without rebranding - and then slowly moved from just ‘Zero’ to ‘Zero Sugar’

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