Friday, October 17, 2014

Progressive Companies Warm My Heart!



Recognize any of those yummy drinks up there?  They are all refreshing beverages made by the Dr Pepper Snapple Group.  I am going to be honest with you, I have drank many of those beverages up there for years, but have seriously never heard of the Dr Pepper Snapple Group before this blog post opportunity.

I was invited by said group, along with TheMotherhood.com, to take part in an informational webinar to learn more about the company and their efforts to meet the needs of Americans.

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I know when you are thirsty it is easy to just plop your coins into the machine and push a button without thinking about all the effort that went into bringing that particular drink to market.  Here are just a couple fact I thought were interesting about Dr Pepper Snapple Group...
  • They sell more than 50 brands of carbonated soft drinks, teas, juices, mixers and other beverages.  
  • They own 6 of the top 10 non-cola soft drink brands.
  • Making your beverage required work from Scientists, Engineers, and a whole handful of specialists to work and perfect the formula and bring the drink to market.
  • When one drink is brought to your store shelves, most likely it has undergone an average of 40 variations before the perfect formula was discovered.  
  • When a new product is devised, it takes 2-3 years to get it ready to sell.  That is sure a long time to work on one project before ever bringing it into the light of day!!!
  • There are only  TWO people on this planet that know the entire formula for Dr. Pepper.  It is a very, very top secret!
  • The Dr Pepper Snapple Group employs over 19,000 people.
  • Each new flavored beverage is presented to a group of professionally trained tasters for scrutiny, probably each of those 40 tries.  Where can I sign up for that job???  And how much does it pay?  And are we paid in real money, or just in Hawaiian Punch?
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I was super impressed by the company's involvement in the community and their aggressive goals to improve nutrition.  Not only are they making more lower-calorie beverages, but they are listening to consumers and using more natural sweetener sources, taking full-calorie drinks out of schools, and are part of an initiative to put the calorie counts on the front of the package to help consumers make informed decisions.  Dr. Pepper Snapple Group is also running an awareness program in local schools to make kids aware of balancing what they drink and eat with activity.

Did you know that America is suffering from a Physical Activity Deficit???
A few facts...
  • Only 20% of children live near a park
  • 2/3 of kids get less than an hour of play a day
  • Kids 8-18 spend an average of 7.5 hours on devices such as computers, TVs, smart phones, and tablets each day.
  • This physical activity deficit, along with poor diets, has tripled obesity rates.

This need for physical activity leads me right to the Let's Play initiative.  To help address the lack of active play, Dr Pepper Snapple Group {DPS} started the Let's Play initiative to provide tools, spaces, and inspiration to make play a priority.  As of today, they have built or improved 2,000 playgrounds in areas as diverse as rural Iowa to the busy suburb Brooklyn.  In the first three years of DPS's cooperation with KaBoom!, a national non-profit organization all about promoting active play, DPS donated $15 million towards the Let's Play playground build/repair project.  After such success in the first three years, the two organizations decided to continue for an additional 2 years and DPS donated another $10 million to the cause.  

I really think you should check out the Let's Play website.  There are ideas for play for the whole family, a park locator, and information on how to get involved improving your local parks.  Have a park near you that is in need of repair or updating???  Check out this page full of grants you can apply for to make the needed improvements.

The one other thing I learned about that was news to me {I don't get out often ;0} is that DPS is responding to consumers who want products with only natural sweeteners, so they have been testing naturally sweetened versions of Dr Pepper, 7up, and Canada Dry.  They are sweetened with a blend of stevia and sugar and have only 60 calories per serving.  

{Here is the part I was talking about was news to me} DPS has made a new line of drinks with only 10 calories.  Here is how it was explained to me...
"Consumer insights told DPS they were losing out on a segment of the consumer population, primarily male, who – as they aged and started watching their weight – didn’t want to shift from regular soft drinks to diets. They didn’t care for the taste or imagery of diets – that’s where Dr Pepper TEN came in, offering the taste experience of a regular soft drink, but with only 10 calories.
You have to love a goofy commercial like that ;0}  And here is a video for your Mr. Rogers/How It's Made side...
Well, long story short, I am really, really impressed with Dr Pepper Snapple Group!  They are a very progressive company, striving and accomplishing goals to improve the health of Americans, AND donating millions to bring about their desired change.  Thank you Dr Pepper Snapple, and TheMotherhood.com for allowing me to tag along and learn so much more about the process of bringing a new brand/flavor to market, a peak at your goals and initiatives as a company, AND for letting me know about the new Ten line.  I am going to have to give a couple of those a try.  I told my aunt about the Ten Dr Pepper and she went out and bought one to try.  She said she really liked it.  I am not a huge fan of cola, but I am all over the Ten A&W Baby!  I will take some Hawaiian punch too while you are at it.  Just hearing that drink mentioned made me want...no NEED to get some!

Man!  Anyone else thirsty besides me?  I guess it goes with the job, poor Dr Pepper Snapple Group employees.  They must be thirsty a lot ;0}






***This was a sponsored post.  While I was compensated for my time and efforts to properly review the information presented, the opinions of the product expressed here were my own.

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