History of Pepsi Timeline

During the Great Depression, Pepsi gained popularity following the introduction in 1934 of a 12-ounce (355 mL) bottle, offering more soda for the same price as competitors.

From 1936 to 1938, Pepsi-Cola's profits doubled, cementing its recovery and growth as a major American soft drink brand.

The Pepsi-Cola name would be shortened to simply "Pepsi" as early as 1945, when their bottles transitioned from standard paper labels to the applied color label (ACL) process, which involved screen-printing enamel paint graphics directly onto the bottle at high temperature.

The ACL labeling motif was carried over when a new bottle design and logo were introduced in mid-1951, marking an evolution in Pepsi's visual identity.

Combined with company and production changes, Pepsi sales had boomed by 1956 and gradually narrowed the gap to its large competitor Coca-Cola.

In 1958, the "swirl" design bottle began to be used for distributing Pepsi, becoming an iconic part of the brand's packaging history.

When Pepsi president Alfred Steele died in 1959, his widow Joan Crawford was appointed to the Board of Directors of Pepsi-Cola, a position she held until 1973, although she was not a board member of the larger PepsiCo, created in 1965.

When the drink was rebranded in 1962, two versions of the same logo with either name were used interchangeably. By 1969, the drink would almost exclusively be referred to as "Pepsi", with the full name retained for secondary uses.

In 1963, the drink began to be distributed in America in larger 16-ounce (473 mL) bottles, and 12-ounce cans were introduced as well.

Diet Pepsi, a second Pepsi product and the first extending the brand, was launched in 1964.

Image source: Diet Pepsi

The larger PepsiCo company was created in 1965 through a merger with Frito-Lay, expanding beyond beverages and eventually helping PepsiCo overtake the Coca-Cola Company in total corporate sales.

Image source: PepsiCo

While total American Pepsi sales figures never overtook that of Coca-Cola, in corporate terms PepsiCo had overtaken the Coca-Cola Company in total corporate sales in 1979, partly driven by PepsiCo's wide range of non-beverage products after its merger with Frito-Lay in 1965.

Image source: Cola wars

Although total Pepsi sales never overtook that of Coca-Cola, the latter's lead in the American market had been narrowed to 1½-to-1 as of 1980 (from 5-to-1 in 1950), and Pepsi was outselling its rival in the "take-home" market, which includes supermarkets.

In November 1984, PepsiCo announced that it would, at least in the US, exclusively use high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) to sweeten its canned, bottled and fountain Pepsi-Cola, replacing cane sugar.

In 1985, The Coca-Cola Company, amid much publicity, changed its formula. With the special exception of 1985, when Coca-Cola sales were fractured between New Coke and Coca-Cola Classic, Pepsi briefly outsold its rival in America.

Image source: New Coke

The Project Blue design was first tested in the United States in June 1997, and was released that December in preparation for Pepsi's 100th anniversary. From 1986 to 2003, the Pepsi wordmark was typeset in a custom treatment of Handel Gothic; this logo was also used for Pepsi Throwback until 2014.

In October 2008, Pepsi announced that it would redesign its logo and re-brand many of its products by early 2009. In 2009, Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, and Pepsi Max began using all lower-case fonts for name brands.

It replaced the original formulation in many regions including Argentina and across Europe since at least 2021, with sugar being reduced by over one third from approximately 10.7 g to 7.0 g (per 100 mL) in some countries, while in Western Europe sugar was cut by more than half, to 4.6 g per 100 mL. The new formulation came into effect in Australia in 2025, done as part of PepsiCo's pro-health commitment and due to increasing sugar taxes worldwide.

In March 2023, Pepsi unveiled a new logo expected to launch in North America in late-2023, and internationally in 2024 (including 2025 in Colombia).

These efforts helped make Pepsi-Cola popular in many markets, including the Middle East following the opening of a plant in Cairo, and the Beirut Daily Star referred to the "Pepsi-Cola culture" when distribution began in Lebanon in 1952.

Pepsi was introduced in Romania in 1966, during the early liberalization policies of Nicolae Ceaușescu, opening a factory at Constanța in 1967.

In 1972, PepsiCo struck a barter agreement with the government of the Soviet Union, in which PepsiCo was granted exportation and Western marketing rights to Stolichnaya vodka in exchange for importation and Soviet marketing of Pepsi.

Notably, in 1974 Pepsi became the very first American consumer product to be produced, marketed and sold in the Soviet Union.

In 1988, PepsiCo entered the Indian market by creating a joint venture with the government of Punjab-owned Punjab Agro Industrial Corporation and Voltas India Limited. This joint venture marketed and sold Lehar Pepsi until 1991, when the use of foreign brands was allowed; PepsiCo promptly bought out its partners and ended the joint venture in 1994.