Harry: From calorie count to portion sizes,
we wanted to find out all the differences
between Pepsi in the UK and the US.
This is "Food Wars."
In the UK, Pepsi comes in a range of portion sizes,
but these do vary slightly
depending on which type of Pepsi you're buying.
We used to be able to get mini cans,
but they've been discontinued,
so now you can get classic Pepsi in four portion sizes.
As a 330-milliliter can,
as a 500-milliliter bottle,
as a 1.5-liter bottle,
and as a 2-liter bottle.
In the US, our Pepsi comes in these following sizes:
The mini can is the smallest. 7.5 fluid ounces.
Next one up, the classic can, 12 fluid ounces.
Then we move up to plastic bottles.
This one is 16.9 fluid ounces.
Then we got the 20-fluid-ounce bottle.
And if that's not enough,
we go up to 1-liter bottle. Liter of cola.
Then moving up a little bit more, 1.25-liter bottle.
And then our biggest bottle is the 2-liter bottle.
We can also get glass bottles,
but like the classic can, they are 12 ounces.
Where regular Pepsi is concerned,
both countries cap out at a 2-liter bottle.
However, in the UK, we can go one step further
when it comes to diet and Max Pepsi.
Certain retailers, such as Iceland or B&M, stock these.
A 3-liter bottle of Pepsi Max or Pepsi diet.
We finally have something bigger than America! We did it!
I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing,
probably bad for the nation's health,
but, you know, nice to be different for once.
There are some other slight size differences
for the sugar and sugar-free options in the UK as well.
For example, in the UK,
we can get a 1.25-liter bottle of Pepsi Max or Pepsi diet,
which we can't get for the classic Pepsi.
The size differences are largely down to the UK's sugar tax.
It's a tax which raised the price of drinks
with more than 5 grams of sugar per 100 milliliters.
The higher prices reduce the demand
for the full-sugar versions of soft drinks,
making it less viable to sell them in large containers,
such as the 3-liter.
But don't worry, because you can still get sugary Pepsi
in bulk quantities.
Our largest bulk is the 36-can pack of Pepsi,
and that's the 12-ounce cans.
That is 432 fluid ounces of soda,
or 3.375 gallons, of Pepsi.
Now, that pack of cans is at least available at Sam's Club,
possibly Costco, I don't know, but I went to Sam's Club,
and unfortunately they would not let me buy it
without a membership.
So, the best I could do are these pictures
of me with the packs.
That is much larger than our largest option,
which is this, a 24-pack of cans.
Not only is our multipack
only two-thirds the size of the American one,
but the cans themselves are also smaller.
A can in the UK contains 330 milliliters,
while a can in the US contains 355.
This means that the total for our 24-pack
comes to 2.09 gallons.
Even if we had a 36-pack,
it would still be smaller than the American version.
We need three extra cans to make up the difference.
Here are all the Pepsi products you'll find in the UK
that you won't find in the US.
Here are all the Pepsi products from the US
you won't find in the UK.
We'll start with the exclusive flavors of Pepsi.
In the UK, we have Pepsi Max raspberry.
It's got that really comforting,
extremely nostalgic artificial blue-raspberry flavor
that you're used to.
On Pepsi's UK website, it also said they do lime Pepsi,
but I wasn't able to find that at any of the stores I tried.
Whoops.
We have a few exclusive Pepsi options of our own.
Starting down here, we have Pepsi real sugar,
which is in fact made with real sugar,
not the high-fructose-corn-syrup stuff.
Not bad.
We also have Pepsi mango and Pepsi mango zero sugar.
Seems like a weird fruit choice.
Whoa, smells good.
I'm surprised by how good this is.
And they got the mango zero sugar.
Ooh, already smells drastically different.
It's got a real chemically aftertaste.
Not as good as the regular.
This one here is
Pepsi soda shop cream soda.
Mm.
Very nice.
And the last one, Pepsi vanilla.
I'm gonna be honest with you, Pepsi,
could use a lot more vanilla.
It's, like, vanilla-kissed.
[burps] There it is.
All right, right now what I want to do
is compare the already-tasted real sugar Pepsi
to the regular Pepsi, which has high-fructose corn syrup.
Regular Pepsi.
[coughs]
Pepsi's harsher than Coke.
Yeah.
About to say something somewhat controversial,
but bring it, I want all the smoke.
Real sugar Pepsi tastes just like Coke.
It's just smoother.
This is like ... [burps]
Yeah, this is, like, harsher.
Joe was kind enough to send me some American Pepsi
as well as some real sugar Pepsi,
so I'm going to do a three-way taste test
and see if I can tell the difference.
Pepsi No. 1.
That's very, like, strong flavor,
quite a syrupy texture to it almost.
Pepsi No. 2.
Yeah, very sweet, but almost in a more gentle kind of way.
And then No. 3.
More similar in kind of, like,
I'd say sweetness and mouthfeel to the middle one.
This one is the one that stood out with the strongest taste,
in my opinion.
These two were very similar, which is making me think
that these are the British and real sugar Pepsis.
I'm not sure in which order,
but they had a more gentle taste,
whereas this one seemed harsher and tasted very syrupy.
So I'm going to guess British,
American real sugar,
American normal Pepsi.
I'm shocked.
These two tasted really similar to me,
and this one stood out, like I said,
and it wasn't particularly pleasant.
Maybe the UK needs to take a leaf out of America's book
and just put high-fructose corn syrup in everything.
The other exclusive Pepsi item in the UK
is this Pepsi SodaStream syrup.
For the uninitiated, a SodaStream is a device
which lets you carbonate your own drinks at home.
Now, as a sparkling-water obsessive,
I actually own one of these.
So we're going to make our own Pepsi.
So, what you do
is you get one of your little SodaStream bottles,
fill it to the first line, and attach it to the machine.
Then you press this button, and the magic happens.
According to this bottle,
you add about half a cap of the syrup to this.
That's quite cool.
The first thing I get is just Pepsi.
It tastes a lot like Pepsi Max.
There is a slightly unpleasant aftertaste,
which, I'm not sure where that's come from.
Maybe I used too much syrup. Who knows.
But I think, yeah, in terms of recreating
a fizzy drink at home with not a lot of equipment,
it's pretty good.
And that's pretty much it
as far as Pepsi exclusives are concerned,
but we're not stopping there.
PepsiCo owns more beverage brands,
but it does differ depending on which country you live in.
Now, while in the US, Keurig Dr Pepper owns 7Up,
in the UK, it's actually owned by PepsiCo,
which means that technically
all of these are Pepsi exclusives.
British 7Up comes in four forms.
As classic 7Up, a 7Up Free, 7Up cherry Free,
and as a SodaStream syrup.
That's actually not bad.
It doesn't have the unpleasant aftertaste
that the Pepsi one did.
That to me just tastes like 7Up.
One other thing that's worth pointing out
is that in the UK, this is considered lemonade.
Like, if you walk into a pub or a restaurant
and ask for a glass of lemonade, this is what you'll get.
Like, a clear sparkling beverage.
Is that not the case in America?
That is definitely not lemonade,
and it is super weird.
Lemonade is lemon, not juice, right?
But you squeeze lemons in water and mix it up,
and it's, like, more refreshing and kind of tart.
And it's closer to a lemon juice.
It's definitely not carbonated.
In front of me we have something that's brand new,
and it is called Pepsi Nitro.
What is it? Wait, excuse me.
Nitro Pepsi, flip 'em.
Looks to be a tall boy of Pepsi
that, according to the can, is nitrogen-infused cola
with smaller bubbles and a smoother taste.
[drink fizzes]
Did you hear that? Oh, man!
That's a pretty hard pour, right?
It's not going crazy like a normal Pepsi would, right?
I'm more excited about the vanilla.
Let's really get really good audio on this one now. Ready?
[drink fizzes]
Hard pour.
Yeah, it's a little bit smoother.
It still tastes just like Pepsi.
Not as carbonated, which is fine.
Do the vanilla.
Much better. Ooh, that's nice. Yeah.
The issue I'm having with it
is that the only time soda is that "smooth"
is when it's flat.
I'll f--- with it, but it's just OK.
Pepsi has a few exclusive brands in the US,
including Mug Root Beer, Sierra Mist, and Bubly.
They're a carbonated-water brand.
Mug Root Beer.
I was the master at being able
to tell different root beers on taste.
I could tell them apart.
That information is, like, in my DNA.
One of these days we'll do a root-beer lineup,
a root-beer taste test.
I guarantee I will ace that test.
Yeah, it's taking me back.
Also, they got Sierra Mist.
I hate Sierra Mist.
It's a lemon-lime flavor.
I don't know if they're competing with Sprite or 7Up.
Always hated this.
Sprite is better. 7Up is better.
Sierra Mist tastes the way
fruit-flavored shampoo smells, if that makes sense.
[burps] OK.
This'll be my ranking system, from best to worst.
So, first we're going to go strawberry.
No, I do not like that.
Cherry.
I think these all might be bad.
That one's a little better than the strawberry one.
Pineapple.
Nope, woof!
Grapefruit, ugh.
Low expectations on this one.
Oh, my God, that smells like an armpit.
Oh, man, if I went into a public restroom
and it smelled like this, I would run out.
No!
Oh-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho!
Yeah, that's the worst one.
Lime. Can't screw up lime, come on.
Congrats, lime, you're the least offensive.
Peach.
What the hell happened? Why are these all so bad?
Raspberry.
Oh, man, the smell of that.
It says natural flavor.
It does not taste natural at all.
At all. At all.
Ah, blackberry.
OK, that's the best one, but it's not very good.
And last and not -- mango.
OK, so we had the mango,
so they know how to flavor things mango properly.
The mango Pepsi's fantastic.
I mean, yeah, these two are the best one.
They're not very good.
Bubly is not very good.
How could they screw these up this bad?
PepsiCo also owns Mountain Dew in the UK and the US,
but that is a story for another episode.
Story time. Anyone ever remember or heard of New Coke?
Well, you can thank Pepsi for that.
Once upon a time,
Coca-Cola was actually losing market share,
and Pepsi put out a very popular ad campaign
where people were blind taste-testing Coke and Pepsi
and picking Pepsi.
So Coke panicked,
and they pushed to market a beverage called New Coke,
which is basically Coke
that was supposed to taste more like Pepsi.
Guess what? Huge marketing blunder.
Not only did Coca-Cola fans get annoyed
that they changed the formula of a beverage they liked,
but all New Coke was doing was giving Pepsi more attention.
Either way, just 79 days after introducing New Coke,
Coke announced that they'd be bringing back
the original drink, called Coca-Cola Classic.
And you will maybe notice, for, like, 20 years,
Coca-Cola was called Coca-Cola Classic.
It had "Classic" on there. Have you ever wondered why?
That's because they wanted to make it perfectly clear,
this is not that New Coke that you hated
from 1988 or whatever.
So, Pepsi, they had their day in the sun,
but to be honest, I mean,
Coke is clearly the more dominant brand.
Speaking of product failures, remember Crystal Pepsi?
That was widely considered
to be one of the biggest product failures ever.
Time magazine put Crystal Pepsi at No. 3
on the biggest-fails list.
Thrillist called it "Soda World's Greatest Fail."
But why?
Soda sales were stagnant in the early '90s,
with consumers instead opting
for clear and caffeine-free sodas.
Former Pepsi marketing exec David Novak
pitched a drink that was both,
and Crystal Pepsi was born.
The recipe was developed by food scientist Surinder Kumar,
and Pepsi ended up with a clear drink
that maintained an almost identical taste to Classic Pepsi.
They rushed it out in time for the 1993 Super Bowl.
It was backed by a $40 million ad campaign,
and they did sell about half a billion dollars' worth of it.
But by March of '93, the hype quickly faded.
Consumers did not love the new flavor,
and the concept was even parodied by "SNL"
in a "crystal gravy" sketch.
Hilarious.
Roughly one year after launch,
Crystal Pepsi was discontinued.
But if you never got the chance to try it,
there's still hope for you.
Pepsi's bringing Crystal Pepsi back for a limited time
to celebrate its 30th anniversary.
You can't buy it in stores, but you can enter a contest
by sending them a picture of yourself
from the '90s on Twitter.
Here is my entry.
I've got a story of my own.
Remember that time when Pepsi briefly became
the world's sixth-most-powerful military force?
It all started in 1959
at the American National Exhibition in Moscow.
When a discussion between
the then vice president, Richard Nixon,
and Nikita Khrushchev became heated,
a Pepsi exec called Donald Kendall stepped in
to hand Khrushchev a glass of Pepsi to cool him down.
Khrushchev enjoyed Pepsi so much that arrangements were made
for it to be imported from the US to Russia.
As part of the deal, Pepsi even negotiated a monopoly,
locking Coca-Cola out of the country.
The drink's popularity exploded
in an otherwise uncontested market.
But there was one problem: payment.
The Russian ruble wasn't accepted
outside of the Soviet Union,
so the Russians had to come up
with an alternative arrangement.
They settled on a universal currency: vodka.
Russia traded thousands of cases of Stolichnaya vodka
for Pepsi syrup throughout the '60s and the '70s.
However, they did run into problems in the '80s.
Pepsi's popularity in Russia combined with a boycott
due to the Soviet-Afghan War
meant that vodka just wasn't going to cut it anymore.
Here's where things get fun.
In the spring of 1989,
Pepsi and the Soviet Union agreed a deal
whereby Pepsi would be given 17 old submarines
and three warships.
They would then sell them for scrap to pay for the Pepsi.
Therefore, for a short period of time,
Pepsi controlled the sixth-most-powerful navy in the world.
Now that is a food war.
Here's everything in a Pepsi in the US.
Carbonated water, high-fructose corn syrup,
caramel color, sugar,
phosphoric acid, caffeine,
citric acid, natural flavors.
Here is everything in Pepsi in the UK.
Carbonated water, sugar,
color (caramel E150d), phosphoric acid,
and flavorings including caffeine.
Now, obviously Pepsi won't go into specifics
on the flavorings used,
because the recipe is a closely guarded secret.
Or is it?
Pepsi was invented in North Carolina in 1893
by a man named Caleb Bradham.
First it was called Brad's Drink,
but then they renamed it Pepsi in 1898.
It comes from the fact that it was marketed
as relieving dyspepsia, another word for indigestion.
It's giving me indigestion, so that's weird.
However, in 1923, the original Pepsi-Cola company
went bankrupt due to fluctuating sugar prices
after World War I.
As part of the bankruptcy filing,
Bradham had to release the recipe for Pepsi,
as it was a company asset,
and it's still publicly available to this day.
So you can make your own Pepsi at home
simply by combining sugar, water, caramel color,
lime juice, phosphoric acid, alcohol, lemon juice,
orange juice, cinnamon oil, nutmeg, coriander (cilantro),
and petitgrain, which is an essential oil
extracted from the leaves and twigs of bitter orange trees.
Yeah, just those things.
The rights to Pepsi were eventually bought
by a man named Charles Guth,
who was then the president of the Loft Corporation,
which later merged into PepsiCo.
They of course claim
that they reformulated the recipe after the takeover,
but the original is still there for all to see.
Enough with the history lesson.
What is the difference between US and UK Pepsi?
That is why we are here.
First, let's talk about acids.
Both the UK and the US acidify their Pepsi
with phosphoric acid.
It's a weak acid which is primarily used as a fertilizer.
When added to foods, it provides a tangy taste,
but it's also been linked to causing kidney stones
as well as osteoporosis.
The US also uses citric acid in its Pepsi.
Citric acid is a more common
and generally safer acidifier in foods,
but it's one of the things in sodas
that will cause tooth enamel to erode
after repeated consumption.
I happen to have some of that right here.
Whoo!
That's sour.
Another major difference in Pepsi
is that in the US, we sweeten our Pepsi
with high-fructose corn syrup in addition to sugar.
High-fructose corn syrup is everywhere
in American sodas and candies.
Government subsidies make it super-cheap
for American farmers to grow corn,
and food manufacturers use corn syrup to save money
instead of importing sugarcane
from places like Mexico and Brazil.
Corn syrup is hard to find at all in the UK.
We did manage to track down this small bottle,
but only in a specialist grocery store.
Even then, it's just regular corn syrup
and not high-fructose.
The good news is, is that it isn't actually
any worse for you than sugar.
The main impact is on the taste,
which explains why we have a Pepsi made with real sugar.
Here it is, a version of the US drink
which does not contain any corn syrup.
This version actually has the exact same ingredients
as the UK Pepsi.
Anything else to note?
Well, our old friend caramel color is back.
In the UK, it's listed as caramel E150d,
while the US just lists caramel color.
This is a somewhat controversial food coloring
used to give things like Pepsi
a distinctive golden-brown tinge.
There are four classes of caramel color,
classes I through IV. Studies have suggested
that the production of classes III and IV
create a byproduct that may put people at risk
of developing cancer.
Of course.
Why can't we enjoy anything?
While the FDA has stopped short of banning caramel color,
the state of California added it to its Proposition 65
list of chemicals known to cause cancer
and birth defects or reproductive harm.
Are these potentially harmful caramel colors in our Pepsi?
Well, in the UK, the answer is yes.
We know that class IV caramel color is used in the UK
because sulfite ammonia caramel has the E number E150d,
which is on the list.
What about in the US, where it just says
caramel color without specifics?
We reached out to Pepsi
to ask which class they use over here.
And their answer was: nothing.
They said they would not comment on the specific ingredients
due to proprietary issues.
Yeah, guys?
You're afraid that detail's gonna really help,
uh,
cut into your competition?
So, your Pepsi may or may not
be putting you at risk of cancer.
So glad we cleared that up.
In the US, a can of Pepsi contains the following.
150 calories,
0 grams of fat,
41 grams of carbohydrates,
and all those are sugars,
and 30 milligrams of sodium.
A can of Pepsi in the UK contains the following.
135 calories,
0 grams of fat,
36 grams of carbs,
of which 36 grams are sugars,
and 4 milligrams of sodium.
Obviously the alarming stat here is the sugar.
Just one can of US Pepsi
contains 80% of your daily sugar allowance.
Really, one?
Ugh.
The UK statistic is slightly better,
at just 72% of your daily allowance,
but that is still a lot of sugar
in a relatively small amount of liquid.
There's also some caffeine in Pepsi.
A 12-ounce can contains 38 milligrams of caffeine,
which is about half as much as an 8-ounce cup of coffee.
I of course am drinking
both Pepsi and coffee at the same time.
Pepsi doesn't openly disclose
its caffeine content in the UK,
but according to a website I found
called caffeineinformer.com,
a can of UK Pepsi Max contains 42 milligrams of caffeine.
The US equivalent of Pepsi Max is Pepsi zero sugar,
but a can, not pictured here,
has over 69 milligrams of caffeine.
N-n-n-n-nice. [air horn goes off]
Making it significantly more caffeinated
than the UK version.
But the good news: According to the FDA,
you need to consume 1,200 milligrams of caffeine
in a short period of time to put your health in danger.
That's about 18 cans of Pepsi zero sugar.
I like a challenge, let's go.
Ugh!
Can I drink a carbonated water without burping?
Wait. Ah, damn it.
I'm sorry. [burps] I tried.