It’s hard to imagine a world without Pepsi or Mountain Dew, but their many dozens of spin-offs over the years are almost always on borrowed time.
Besides the diet varieties in Pepsi Max and Diet Mountain Dew, there’s always a chance that consumer trends will shift away from variant flavours to spur a shift in the lineups.
It seems that time has come for a fair few different types of Pepsi and Mountain Dew, with the PepsiCo owned beverages both set for slimmed-down rosters in the near future.
The news was confirmed to Today.com, with a spokesperson confirming the change hinted at by the PepsiCo website’s product locator.
No less than 14 drinks are being discontinued, with a PepsiCo spokesperson telling Today.com: “PepsiCo’s beverage portfolio is always evolving to reflect shifting consumer tastes and seasonal trends — bringing fresh, exciting flavors to market that surprise and delight our fans.”
In other words: if people ain’t buying, they ain’t selling. Some variants are limited by design too, keeping the lineup fresh and inspiring customers to grab certain options while they’re briefly available.
New Pepsi flavours dropped earlier this year, namely Pepsi Wild Cherry and Cream, and the not-so-catchily-named Pepsi Zero Sugar Wild Cherry and Cream, but four of their siblings are getting the axe.
Those include:
- Pepsi Lime
- Pepsi Peach
- Nitro Pepsi
- Nitro Pepsi Vanilla
The Nitro Pepsi flavours got their name from their nitrogen-infused recipes that offered a smooth and creamy texture. They were first brought into the fold in 2022, and it seems they’re waving goodbye for now.
They seem to have plenty of fans, with Redditors sharing their displeasure at the discontinuations.
“People said it ‘tasted flat’ but I liked the micro bubbles,” said one. “Reminded me of a stout draft.”
“That sucks, I really liked it,” said another.
Another lamented the passing of a personal era: “I have a lot of memories playing a certain TF2 [Team Fortress 2] death run server, eating candy and drinking Pepsi Nitro, d**king around. Now the server is dead and Pepsi Nitro is discontinued.”
On the Mountain Dew side, the new seasonal flavours in Mountain Dew Dragon Fruit and Mountain Dew Summer Freeze are coming in as a whopping 10 other varieties are retired – for now, at least.
Those include:
- Mountain Dew Major Melon
- Mountain Dew Zero Sugar Major Melon
- Mountain Dew Spark
- Mountain Dew Spark Zero Sugar
- Mountain Dew Purple Thunder Zero Sugar
- Mountain Dew Caffeine Free
- Mountain Dew White Out
- Mountain Dew Kickstart Mango Lime
- Mountain Dew Kickstart Original Dew
- Mountain Dew Kickstart Blueberry Pomegranate
Rachael Davis