Ties your stomach in a knot

Warning: this post (the topic, not the style) contains more than 45 grams of irony.

Starting this fall, PepsiCo will be providing nearly all of the drinks mandated under the Los Angeles Unified School District’s groundbreaking 2002 Healthy Beverages Motion. I’m not sure how exactly to react or respond. Complexities and contradictions abound. The world’s second largest soda company will be operationally responsible for enforcing a ban on sodas in the nation’s second largest school district, and marketing to a captive audience of students without access to their largest brand.

Pepsico last month signed a five year, $26 million deal with LAUSD giving the company exclusive rights to stock school stores at all of the district’s middle and high schools and vending machines at 75 percent of these school sites. (Small and minority-owned businesses will get the chance to handle vending machines in the remaining quarter of schools.) Because LAUSD outlawed sodas in 2002, Pepsi will be drawing from its vast galaxy of brands and subsidiary companies to come up with allowable drinks like Aquafina waters, Gatorade sports drinks, and Dole 100 percent juices (a product of Pepsi subsidiary Dua Juice, which licenses the Dole name from the fruit conglomerate.)

The news hits close to home for us. Back in 2002 my colleagues Francesca de la Rosa and Sarah Pope did some great organizing work in helping build support for the healthy beverages motion.  It’s hard to accept that Pepsi has gotten their sweet, sticky paws onto this important victory and will be steering implementation for the next five years.

Admittedly, there may be some upsides to a district-wide contract. Schools were supposed to get sodas and other high sugar beverages out of their vending machines and stores by January 2004. But enforcement lagged, partly because each of the district’s 100 plus high and middle schools were responsible for their own vending contracts and partly because a lack of outreach to students and failure to bring in a wide enough range of healthier replacement drinks caused revenues to drop at most school sites that made the switch. Some schools kept sodas in their vending machines for months and months after they were supposed to be outlawed. (Check out pages 10-12 of our report on school food in So. Cal. for more on the motion’s implementation.) With one company responsible for most points of sale, pimping their own brands of juice and water, at least the compliance problem will get taken care of. Plus the signing bonus, LAUSD’s 15 percent cut of sales revenue, and new higher prices will help stem revenue losses that had led some principals and administrators to oppose the healthy beverages motion and undermine (or at least not actively assist) its implementation.

These potential benefits shouldn’t blind us to the downsides of the Pepsi contract. Ideally the renegotiation of vending contracts should have become a teachable moment to talk with students about health and how corporations market to kids. Schools could have sought the input of students and parents and worked with smaller, healthy drink companies. A well designed, inclusive soda phase out could have improved the schoolo food environment and boosted revenues. Instead, Pepsi will get a five year shot at the district’s middle and highschoolers. The last word in the Daily News article referenced in the top link above goes to John Craven, editor of BevNet.com, an online beverage industry site:

"That might be their ticket to capturing the demographic they had lost to Vitamin Water and Red Bull," he said. "They hadn't been able to reach those demographics properly and this definitely gives them direct access to a captive audience."

LAUSD will auction off their young audience a second time as they prepare to hold a parallel bidding process for snack food items in stores and vending machines. Since the district has an Anti-obesity Motion that places nutrition standards on vended food items, the health and commercialism stakes for this new contract are much the same. I’m not sure what the timing is, but wonder if we should request info on the bidding process or try to get healthy school advocates involved in any way.

A personal addendum. I feel like I'm just slightly impaired on the soda restriction front because I've never been a big soda fan. I can't identify with some peoples' intense loyalties to coke or pepsi or mountain dew or whatever. Loyalties comprised of childhood memories, taste and regional preferences, and that idealized conception of one's social niche and aspirations that brands glom onto. I was searching the LAUSD site for info on the pepsi deal and this scary picture popped up, courtesy of an 11th grader's website. His profile states that:

"One of my most favorite things to do is to drink the best soda in the world Pepsi. I hate Coca Cola!"

Now that's brand loyalty. My pepsi associations aren't as passionate. When I was a kid I did used to sing a parody song (based, though I didn't know it back then, on the drink's 1940's as jingle that started: 'Pepsi-Cola hits the spot, twelve full ounces, that's a lot...'):

Pepsi cola hits the spot

ties your stomach in a knot

tastes like vinegar, looks like ink

pepsi cola is a stinky drink.