Scientists at PepsiCo (PEP) have spent 70 years and billions of dollars chasing the right combination of lemon and lime.
And they still haven't figured it out.
We can go back nearly 100 years to understand Pepsi's struggles...
In 1929, one company out of St. Louis first created the soft drink 7UP. At the time, and throughout the next two decades, this soda was laced with lithium as a calming agent.
As you can imagine, folks were hooked. 7UP stormed the beverage market and was a dominant soda for decades.
Then, in the 1970s, Sprite began to steal 7UP's market share. Its brand benefited from generous marketing spending and associations with hip-hop stars and other edgy artists. In 1986, rapper Kurtis Blow recorded an ad touting Sprite's taste... "Great lymon taste, it's tough," Blow rapped. "Without lymon, it's not happening. So sorry, 7UP."