SDI JUL09.qxd - Soft Drinks International

26 Soft Drinks International – JULY 2009
By The Case Load
Mello
McDonald's recently ended its Pepsi-
Cola fountain test (including Mountain
Dew) in favour of Coca-Cola and Dr
Pepper, giving Dr Pepper Snapple
Group Inc a greater foothold at the fastfood
chain. Dr Pepper, now available in
8,500 McDonald's, will be added to
fountains at all of the company's 14,000
US locations.
McDonald's, based in Oak Brook,
Illinois, is expanding its fountain and
bottled drinks to complement its answer
to Starbucks, with the McCafé espressobased
drinks that are now available in
about 70% of its US stores.
Coca-Cola's core fountain brands such
as its nostalgic soft drinks like Mello
Yello still remain on tap for McDonald's
regional beverage offerings. Unlike
Coca-Cola there is no secret ingredient
in Mello Yello, but it was rumoured to
contain bananadine, a fictional psychoactive
substance which is allegedly
extracted from banana peels. The
banana-buzz in the 1960s was known as
'electrical bananas' or 'mellow yellow'
by the hippies. Banana-heads would
scrape the white fibres from the inside
of the peels, boil the scrapings into a
paste, which was then baked. The dark
brown 'banana tar' that resulted was
then smoked with hashish.
The smoking of bananadine may have
got a surge from British folk-rock singer
Donovan's Mellow Yellow: "Electrical
banana is gonna be a sudden craze.
Electrical banana is bound to be the
very next phase. They call it mellow
yellow (quite rightly)... "
Donovan insisted that his song had no
hidden drug meaning, but seekers found
one anyway. Mello Yello is presumably
named after the ever popular 1967
Donovan album and single Mellow
Yellow, and, in fact, a cover of the song
was used to promote the soft drink.
Researchers at New York University
have found that banana peel contains no
intoxicating chemicals, and that smoking
it produces only a placebo effect.
Richard
Davis reports
on soft
drinks at
McDonald's,
the US fast food chain,
and what a certain frozen
beverage does to the
brain.
Mello Yello was featured in the 1990
NASCAR-based movie Days of Thunder,
in which Tom Cruise's character, Cole
Trickle, drove a Mello Yello-sponsored
car to victory lane in the Daytona 500,
although the soft drink’s name itself is
never verbally mentioned in the movie.
NASCAR fans later got to see the real
thing when Cruise's Mello Yello-car
become a real NASCAR paint scheme
the following year, with driver Kyle
Petty driving with Mello Yello sponsorship
in the Winston Cup Series.
Choice and nutrition
The Coca-Cola Company's 54-year relationship
with McDonald's Corporation
has never been stronger. Beginning this
year, the core fountain line-up at
McDonald's 14,000 plus United States
restaurants will include brands Coca-
Cola, Diet Coke, Sprite, and Hi-C
Orange. Coca-Cola's Dasani will remain
a national core bottle beverage, and now
Powerade Mountain Blast and vitaminwater
XXX (Triple X), will be made
available as regional bottle options.
Coca-Cola brands including Powerade,
Sprite Zero, Fanta Grape, Fanta
Strawberry, Caffeine Free Diet Coke,
Barq's Root Beer, Minute Maid
Lemonade and Minute Maid Lemonade
Light, will be made available as regional
fountain options at McDonald's
restaurants across the US. Coke Zero,
due to its explosive growth and success,
will also be offered in a number of
restaurants as part of McDonald's ongoing
beverage development.
A recent McDonald's corporate social
responsibility report stated that
McDonald's is a nutritious meal. But
critics want more beyond the new
McDonald's Happy Meal Choices that
give children and their parents the
opportunity to mix and match traditional
Happy Meal favourites like French
fries and soft drinks with healthier
Happy Meal Choices such as Apple
Dippers (fresh, peeled apple slices)
served with a low fat caramel dipping
sauce, and beverage choices including
100% pure Minute Maid apple juice
and 1% low fat white and chocolate
Milk Jugs.
However, a new scientific development
may not silence all the zealots in
Director Robert Kenner's new documentary
film Food, Inc. but a Brandis
University Professor may have the
answer when it comes to combatting the
bad 'LDL' cholesterol in fast-food.
Enter 'The Man with the Golden Bun'.
Dr Daniel Perlman is hoping to revolutionise
the way that billions of people
around the world eat fast-food. He has
invented a healthier hamburger bun and
is trying to convince McDonald's USA,
and its supplier Ralcorp Holdings Inc
(Ralcorp Frozen Bakery Products) to
implement the cholesterol-lowering
hamburger bun.
The new proposed 'McBun' would
effectively neutralise the bad cholesterol
contained in hamburgers. In a nutshell,
the bun contains an appropriate
amount of natural phytosterols (a natural
product purified from vegetable oil).
These phytosterols are not absorbed
into the bloodstream, but rather mix
with dietary cholesterol in the digestive
system, and thereby facilitate cholesterol
elimination in the waste.
Phytosterols are GRAS-approved for
all food use. Children as well as adults
benefit from dietary phytosterols since
cholesterol problems and coronary
heart disease begin in childhood. Dr
Perlman bristles at the suggestion that
he has not pursued McDonald's vigor-