Diet Mountain Dew, Brisk and Starbucks RTD Drinks Hit $1B Sales

PURCHASE, N.Y. -- Diet Mountain Dew, Brisk and Starbucks ready-to-drink (RTD) beverages have joined PepsiCo's billion-dollar club. Each brand has grown to more than $1 billion in annual retail sales, the company announced today. With these three new additions, PepsiCo now has 22 billion-dollar food and beverage brands.

"PepsiCo is a global food and beverage company with products that are loved and consumed around the world more than a billion times a day," said PepsiCo Chairman and CEO Indra K. Nooyi. "Our ability to accelerate the growth of our billion-dollar brand portfolio with Diet Mountain Dew, Brisk and Starbucks reflects the success of our product marketing and innovation initiatives, the strength of our joint venture partnerships and the power of our distribution systems. It's a proud achievement shared by the entire PepsiCo family, and we remain laser focused on continuing to strengthen and grow our entire global brand portfolio."

First introduced in 1988, Diet Mountain Dew is the company's eighth carbonated soft drink brand to reach the billion-dollar annual retail sales milestone. Diet Mountain Dew, which has achieved record levels of fan engagement via NASCAR driver sponsorships, college basketball and other consumer programs, has seen its volume more than double in the past 10 years. In the United States, it is the No. 1 20-ounce diet soft drink, by volume, in the convenience and gas retail channel, PepsiCo noted.

PepsiCo has manufactured and distributed Brisk and Starbucks RTD beverages through successful joint venture partnerships with Unilever and Starbucks, respectively, since the early 1990s.

Brisk has seen particularly strong growth in the United States, generating approximately 30 percent volume growth over the past three years. The ready-to-drink iced tea brand, which recently kicked off a multi-media Star Wars partnership (see Star Wars ad below), is sold under the Pepsi Lipton Tea Partnership, a joint venture formed between PepsiCo and Unilever in 1991.

PepsiCo and Starbucks largely created the North American RTD coffee category in 1994 when they formed the North American Coffee Partnership, a successful joint venture under which PepsiCo manufactures and distributes Starbucks RTD, single-serve coffee beverages. The Starbucks brand is the clear leader in its category, with more than 90 percent share of the U.S. RTD coffee segment, according to the company.

To celebrate this milestone, PepsiCo placed advertising welcoming the brands to its billion-dollar portfolio in the Financial Times, The New York Times, USA Today and The Wall Street Journal.

In total, PepsiCo's billion-dollar brand portfolio is composed of: Aquafina, Brisk, Cheetos, Diet Mountain Dew, Diet Pepsi, Doritos, Fritos, Gatorade, Lay's, Lipton, Mirinda, Mountain Dew, Pepsi, Pepsi Max, Ruffles, Quaker, 7UP (outside the U.S.), Sierra Mist, Starbucks RTD beverages, Tostitos, Tropicana and Walkers.