PepsiCo Follows Coca-Cola Into the Hybrid Coffee Market

PepsiCo (NASDAQ: PEP) recently introduced Pepsi Café, a new drink that blends cola with coffee. The new drink comes in original and vanilla flavors, and offers "nearly double" the amount of caffeine as a regular Pepsi cola in each 12 oz. serving.

Pepsi will launch the drink next April and it will follow Coca-Cola's (NYSE: KO) expanded launch of Coca-Cola Plus Coffee into over 25 markets this year. Pepsi Café isn't Pepsi's first hybrid cola-coffee drink -- it tested a similar product, Pepsi Kona, in Philadelphia back in 1996.

Pepsi Kona was discontinued a year later, and the company admits that Kona was "ahead of its time." But this time, Pepsi's marketing VP Todd Kaplan claims that Pepsi Café will appeal to "cola fans, iced coffee drinkers and anyone in need of an extra caffeine boost."

Source Fool.com