Walk down the drinks aisle in an American supermarket and you encounter a broad wall stacked high with hundreds of varieties of colorful liquid bearing dozens of brands.
So much to choose from! But this seeming diversity is misleading at the business level. Just three companies – Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and the Dr. Pepper Snapple Group – control 89% of U.S. soft drink sales.* To illustrate this “pseudovariety” in the industry, Michigan State’s Philip Howard produced this visualization of drink brands – click on it for details, data sources and Howard’s full presentation, and here’s the gigantic version of this infographic. Howard’s conclusion hints at the public health implications:
The illusion of diversity in the soft drink industry extends beyond obscuring ownership, as its products are primarily water and sweeteners. More research is needed on the links between pseudovariety and the consumption of energy-dense, nutrient-poor substances.
Store drinks photo: Like_the_Grand_Canyon
* Toops, Diane. 2008. The trends: another cola war brewing? Food Processing, June 3.
