7 Up

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For other uses, see 7 Up (disambiguation).

7 Up
Type	100% Natural Lemon-Lime Soft Drink
Manufacturer	Cadburys
Country of Origin	United States
Introduced	1929
Variants	dnL, 7 Up Plus
Related products	Dr Pepper, Sprite

7 Up (or Seven Up) is a brand of a lemon-lime flavored soft drink. The rights to the brand are held by Cadbury Schweppes Americas Beverages in the United States, and by PepsiCo in the rest of the world (sublicensed to Britvic in Great Britain and C&C in Ireland).

The product has been reformulated several times since its launch in 1929; in 2006, the U.S. version underwent another reformulation, becoming "100% Natural" with five ingredients: "filtered carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup, natural citric acid, natural flavors, natural potassium citrate".^[1] However, classifying this product as "100% Natural" is problematic as high fructose corn syrup is an un-natural, manufactured chemical. It should also be noted that this is not the case in other countries, such as the United Kingdom, where high fructose corn syrup is not generally used in foods, including 7UP.

The origin of the 7 Up name is unclear. The most popular story is that its creator named the soft drink after seeing a cattle brand with the number 7 and the letter u.^[2] Other rumors suggest that the name reflects the drink's seven flavors and carbonation, that the bottle contained seven ounces, that its creator came up with the name while playing dice, or that even it was the 7th large commercial lemonade brand that taste the same. There is also the rumour that the name was created because the company had previously failed six times, hence the name "7- up".^[2]

Contents 1 pH 2 History 3 Pop culture 4 References 5 See also 6 External links

[edit] pH

Some people mistakenly believe that the name 7 Up comes from the fact that its pH is above 7.0 and therefore neutral. This is not the case: the pH of 7 Up is comparable to many other soft drinks. At a pH of 3.67,^[3] Diet 7 Up is less acidic than lemon juice (pH 2.3), vinegar (pH 2.9) or wine (pH 3.5)^[4].

[edit] History

7 Up was created by Charles Leiper Grigg who launched his St. Louis-based company The Howdy Corporation in 1920.^[2] Grigg came up with the formula for a lemon-lime soft drink in 1929. The product, originally named "Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda", was launched two weeks before the Wall Street Crash of 1929.^[2] The product's name was soon changed to 7 Up.^[2]

7 Up, as its first name suggests, originally contained lithium citrate, a mood-stabilizing drug. It was one of a number of patent medicine products popular in the late-19th and early-20th centuries; they made claims similar to today's health foods.

The Great Depression was just the beginning of the business challenges the product would face. In its early years, there were around 600 lemon-lime beverage brands being sold in the US.^[2] 7 Up was able to survive and become the market leader in the category by being one of the first to be nationally distributed as well as being marketed as more healthy than other soft drinks.^{[citation needed]}

The success of 7 Up led Grigg to rename his company to The Seven Up Company in 1936.^[2]

Lithium citrate was removed from 7 Up's formula in 1950.

After establishing the category as more than a niche, major competitors set their sights on it such as The Coca-Cola Company with its Sprite brand introduced in 1961. Sprite would not challenge 7 Up's position seriously until the 1980s when Coke forced its major bottlers then distributing 7 Up to drop the beverage in deference to Sprite. 7 Up challenged Coke's actions in court as anti-competitive, a challenge they eventually lost.^[5]

Philip Morris acquired The Seven Up Company in June 1978.^[2] Philip Morris sold the brand's U.S. operations in 1986 to a private investment group, which merged with Dr Pepper Company and established Dallas, Texas as the headquarters of the combined company.^[2]

7 Up became dependent on Pepsi's bottlers for distribution during the 1990s, until PepsiCo launched its own serious entrant in the category with Sierra Mist in 2000. PepsiCo then adopted the previous Coca-Cola tactic and forced its bottlers to give up 7 Up for Sierra Mist, which most did by 2003.^{[citation needed]}

The result is that in the United States, DPSU does not have a network of bottlers and distributors, so some of their products are frequently bottled under contract by independent Coca-Cola or Pepsi bottlers, though in some areas independent distributors exist, either by Cadbury-Schweppes, or by individual independent bottling plants such as Vineland Syrup of Vineland, New Jersey[1]. These bottlers often do not distribute their products much beyond major supermarket chains, so 7 Up can be difficult to find in smaller stores and vending machines.

In an effort to align their brands and build a better "route to market", in 2006 Cadbury Schweppes Americas Beverage acquired most of the independent 7 Up bottlers in the U.S and created the Cadbury Schweppes Bottling Group.

In 1998, in the first formula change since lithium's removal, 7 Up was flavor-enhanced, without changing the sugar content or carbonation level.

In 2006 the product was re-formulated so that it could be marketed as being "100% Natural" in the United States. This was achieved by eliminating the preservative calcium disodium EDTA, and replacing sodium citrate with potassium citrate to reduce the beverage's sodium content.^[6] This re-formulation contains no fruit juice and is still sweetened with high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). HFCS is a cheaper, longer shelf-life substitute for cane or beet sugar and the result of a complex industrial process by which starch is extracted from corn and converted by acids or enzymes into glucose and fructose. The manufacturing process needed for HFCS has led some public health and special interest groups to challenge the ad campaign's "natural" claims.^[7]

Furthermore, the metabolic processing of high fructose corn syrup differs from the metabolism of glucose in several important ways. Glucose causes fat cells to release the hormone leptin, which acts to suppress appetite. Glucose also prevents the stomach from releasing the hormone ghrelin, which is a factor in 'feeling' hungry. Fructose, however, has neither of these metabolic properties, which, when compared with glucose, increases effective consumption of fructose containing products because one does not feel 'satisfied' when consuming a comparable amount of fructose when compared with the glucose. Additionally, since the liver converts fructose to triglycerides more readily than it does glucose, fructose metabolism raises 'bad' LDL cholesterol, which not only increases fat stores in the body, but also raises heart attack risk. Finally, recent studies show, that in addition to these effects, the release of fructose in the bloodstream increases insulin resistance, which may be a factor in developing diabetes.^[8]

[edit] Pop culture

• When The Seven-Ups (1973) was filmed, all of the actors posed in front of a 7-Up delivery truck as part of a publicity stunt for advertising the film.
• 7 Up products appeared in the James Bond film Moonraker (1979).
• In 1983, as part of publicity for 7 Up in Mexico, the jingle on the spot was Kim Carnes' hit "Bette Davis Eyes" with the phrase "Alrededor del Mundo Seven Up" ("Around the World Seven Up") and the Pac-Man video game.
• In the same year, it was exhibited in Chile, with the slogan "Seven Up, cristalina y refrescante" ("Seven Up, crystalline and refreshing"), with voice in off by Antonio Vodanovic, host of the famous, Song's International Festival of Viña del Mar.
• The red spot for 7 Up has been an interim mascot for 7 Up. He had a video game spin-off called Cool Spot.
• DJ Quik raps "I need a 7 Up because my head is spinnin' / round and round, I think I better sit down" in his most famous hit "Tonite" ("Quik Is The Name", 1991).
• In the late 1990s, 7-Up adopted the slogan "Make 7-Up Yours." They made shirts that say "Make Seven" on the front and "Up Yours" on the back. The ads were usually accompanied by Orlando Jones walking down a street talking about or vocally advertising 7-Up with people looking shocked behind him at the word "up yours". The ads and slogan quickly became popular, but the campaign was still fairly short-lived.
• There was a game popular with elementary school kids in the 60s-80s called "Seven Up" (though commonly called other names as well), though it had little to do with the drink.
• In the Snoop Dogg song "Chronic Break" off of his debut album Doggystyle he says, "I treat a bitch like 7 Up, I never have I never will.
• From the 1960s to the 1980s, 7 Up was billed as "the un-Cola", particularly in a series of ads featuring actor/choreographer Geoffrey Holder, for example, holding a kola nut in one hand and an "un-Cola nut" (a lemon or lime) in the other.
• 7 Up also sold "un-Cola" drinking glasses, which inverted the shape of the Coca-Cola glass.
• 7UP is the only carbonated soft drink with no artificial additives
• 7UP made Fido Dido famous outside the USA
• 7UP no longer sold in glass bottles.

[edit] References

[edit] See also

Brands of Lemon-lime soft drinks	v • d • e
7 Up - Celeste Mountain Citrus - Fanta - Fruktsoda - Limca - Mountain Dew - Mountain Holler - Ramune - Schin Limão - Sierra Mist - Slice - Sprite - Storm - Teem - Upper 10 - Vess-Up

• Cool Spot
• Vess

[edit] External links

• Official web site
• 7Up (undetermined source of product name)