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Pepsi is getting into the yogurt business

But with so many competing brands, is there any room in the market for a newcomer?

Jeff Horwich: Pepsi is getting into the yogurt business. This raises the question: do we not already have fifty-zillion kinds of yogurt to choose from?

Here’s Marketplace’s Nancy Marshall Genzer.


Nancy Marshall-Genzer: Pepsi will sell yogurt through a joint venture with a German dairy called the Theo Muller Group.  Yes, there are already a lot of yogurt choices. But analysts say the market isn’t over saturated.

Darren Seifer: It’s clear that yogurt is the food of the decade.

Darren Seifer is a food and beverage industry analyst with the NPD Group.

Seifer: The number of times people consume yogurt in a given year has doubled over the last decade.

That helps explain why Pepsi — known more as a purveyor of potato chips and soda — would want to get into the yogurt business.

Bruce Cohen is a food industry analyst at Kurt Salmon. He says Pepsi is trying to sell healthier products, because demand for junk food is falling.

Bruce Cohen: There are times where it’s like you know, I’ve had my fun. It’s time for something  that mom would want me to have.

Pepsi will sell the Muller yogurt in 17 U.S. markets. But don’t look for the word Pepsi on the label. Instead, the Muller yogurt containers will sport the logo for Quaker — which is part of Pepsi.

In Washington, I’m Nancy Marshall-Genzer for Marketplace.

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