Soda changes pace: customisation, lime and zero sugar

In the non-alcoholic beverage world, carbonated soft drinks are often seen as one of the most stable categories: familiar formulas, well-known flavours, habitual consumption patterns. Yet a closer look at a few recent developments suggests a less static picture. Not one single shift, and not a uniform reinvention, but three separate moves that show how soda is looking for new space through customisation, flavour repositioning and more convenient pack sizes.

Dirty soda and the appeal of customisation

The most visible example comes from the United States, where dirty soda has moved quickly from a regional trend to a growing phenomenon. Born in Utah, the format spread through soda shops and social media: a carbonated drink enriched with flavoured syrups, cream, coconut milk or other additions that place it somewhere between a soft drink and a made-to-order beverage.

Its appeal is not just in the recipe. Dirty soda taps into a broader consumer desire for customisation that has long shaped beverage behaviour: people do not only want to choose a product, they want to assemble it. The same instinct has powered personalised specialty coffee, made-to-order drinks and other formats where the final combination becomes part of the experience. Here, the drink can change from one order to the next, and that variability is part of the attraction.

The format’s growth has also pushed some consumption into the home. When demand outpaced the capacity of specialised outlets, consumers started recreating the recipes themselves. The market responded with products designed for home use, especially in syrups and creamers. According to Torani, a California-based beverage syrup company, millennials are the most engaged with the category, with especially high interest among households earning more than $100,000 a year.

The packaged retail market linked to dirty soda is still at an early stage in the US. That leaves room for ready-to-drink offers as well as retail formats that make this style of consumption easier to access. Some major soft drink brands are already paying attention to the space.

7UP and the weight of lime in lemon-lime

A very different, but equally relevant, move comes from 7UP, the historic brand owned by Keurig Dr Pepper, which announced its first major reformulation in more than fifteen years. The change is not only about the recipe: the brand has chosen to shift toward a more lime-forward aromatic profile, alongside a refresh of its visual identity.

In the lemon-lime segment, where products often blur together in consumers’ minds, the move is primarily about differentiation. It is a classic strategy for legacy brands: not to overturn the product completely, but to sharpen one sensory cue in order to stand out while preserving continuity.

Lime has gained visibility across several beverage occasions in recent years, from non-alcoholic mixology to flavoured waters and some premium soft drinks. Here, the point is not to treat that as proof of a single broad trend, but to note how one brand is using a more defined flavour note to escape category sameness.

Smaller packaging as a consumption signal

From Europe comes another signal, quieter but useful in rounding out the picture. Krombacher, the German brewery group, expanded the Spezi Zero range — the sugar-free version of the classic cola-orange blend popular in Germany and Austria — by adding a 33-centilitre format alongside the existing 50-centilitre bottle.

The addition responds to consumer and on-trade demand, and it says something about how the product is actually being used. Smaller packaging tends to work well when a drink is meant for individual, occasional consumption, whether at the bar or during a quick break in the day. In beverage, pack size often tells you as much about the intended occasion as the flavour itself.

In the case of Spezi Zero, the notable point is not just the new format, but how quickly it was added to the range. That suggests the zero-sugar version found an audience sooner than expected, at least enough to justify a rapid extension of the offer.

Taken together, these three cases do not amount to a single soda revolution, nor do they prove a sweeping shift across the whole non-alcoholic beverage sector. They point instead to a set of parallel developments: customisation as a consumption driver, heritage brands refining taste to sharpen their identity, and smaller packs aligned with more fragmented occasions. Different moves, but all of them responding to drinkers who still want familiarity, just with a bit more choice.