How soft-drink giant Pepsi lost big when it took on Yoo-hoo
Yoo-hoo has been a beloved beverage for decades, but for a brief period, Pepsi tried to compete by making its own chocolate drink.
Yoo-hoo dates to the 1920s when grocery-store owner Natale Olivieri invented the beverage "as a chocolaty addition to the fruit juices being sold in New Jersey," the company website says.
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By the 1960s, Yoo-hoo had cemented itself in American culture with baseball Hall of Fame catcher Yogi Berra and his Yankees teammates endorsing it as "the drink of champions." At this point, PepsiCo, Inc. decided to get in on the action.
Pepsi introduced "Devil Shake" in 1966, reported Tasting Table. According to The New York Times, a $100,000 internal study predicted Devil Shake would outsell Yoo-hoo by a margin of 5 to 3.
Within a year, Pepsi had discontinued the chocolate drink and sold its Devil Shake operations to Yoo-hoo for $1, per the Times.
In conceptualizing Devil Shake, Pepsi failed to take into account that rival Yoo-hoo held the rights to the technology needed to keep the drink shelf-stable, Tasting Table reported.
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Pepsi partnered with Yoo-hoo briefly, paying their competitor about $1 million to produce Devil Shake, but ultimately ended up losing millions of dollars and abandoned the product, Tasting Table reported.
Yoo-hoo contains no liquid milk and only requires refrigeration after opening, though it does contain powdered milk and whey. It's also made with "water, cocoa powder, sugar and stabilizers, allowing it to stay smooth and evenly mixed without relying on dairy," reported the History Vids X account.
The drink’s extended shelf life is made possible with a hydrostatic sterilizer machine. The ingredients are blended, heated, pasteurized, quickly cooled, then packaged.
Inventor Olivieri’s wife inspired him to try the process for Yoo-hoo after he watched her sterilize jars while canning tomatoes, according to a Weird History Food YouTube video.
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In the century since its debut, Yoo-hoo endured its own beverage flops. Chocolate-banana, double fudge and island coconut are among the flavors that didn’t make it.
The chocolate drink embraces nostalgia, marketing itself as "the delicious taste loved for generations" that "has reminded us of cheerful childhoods full of energy and fun."
"We are thrilled that Yoo-hoo’s nostalgic treat flavors like chocolate, strawberry and cookies and cream continue to offer new flavors to keep consumers coming back to enjoy," Yoo-hoo's parent company, Keurig Dr Pepper, Inc. told Fox News Digital in a statement.