Pepsi

Pepsi is a carbonated soft drink produced by multinational beverage and food corporation PepsiCo. The drink was invented by pharmacist Caleb Bradham in New Bern, North Carolina in May 1893, and later launched under the name Pepsi-Cola in 1898. Available in a wide variety of flavors, Pepsi is the second-most popular soft drink in the United States, behind its main competitor Coca-Cola.

Pepsi was created by pharmacist Caleb Bradham under the name Brad's Drink in 1893. Bradham began selling the beverage, made of a mix of sugar, water, caramel, lemon oil, kola nuts, nutmeg and other additives, out of his pharmacy in downtown New Bern, NC, and eventually changed the name to Pepsi-Cola in 1898 as the drink grew in popularity. Bradham filed a trademark for Pepsi-Cola in 1903, starting a period of rapid expansion for the company. The next ten years saw Pepsi open up multiple bottling franchises and an office in North Carolina. By 1910, Pepsi had 240 bottling franchises across 24 states.

After a period of exponential growth in the 1900s, Pepsi found itself struggling in the period after World War I. The War saw the price of sugar, a key ingredient, quadruple, causing Bradham to buy massive amounts of it in anticipation of even higher prices. However, the price of sugar instead fell drastically, causing Pepsi to fail and file for bankruptcy in 1923. The bankrupt company was bought by New York investor Roy Megargel later that year. Megargel however had no luck saving Pepsi either, and the company filed for bankruptcy again in 1931 due to the Great Depression.

Pepsi's luck began to change when Charles Guth, the owner and operator of a chain of New York-based candy stores, teamed up with Megargel to buy the trademark for the embattled soda. Dissatisfied with the cost of Coca-Cola, which provided the cola syrup to his chain of candy stores, Guth instead replaced them with Pepsi, whose formula he had changed to his liking. While Pepsi's sudden availability in Guth's candy stores helped save the company from failure, it was Guth's decision to bottle Pepsi and sell it for the low price of five cents that helped sales skyrocket. By 1936, Guth owned 91% of Pepsi and was making over $2 million a year in profit.