More than 100 years ago, in the little town of New Bern, North Carolina, there lived a restless young drugstore owner who once taught chemistry at a local academy. Noting that soft drinks were coming into great popularity, our chemist started experimenting with flavors and carbonated water.
One day he called to his young African-American assistant, James Henry King, "James Henry, come here a minute and taste something." When King stepped back into the small laboratory, he was handed a beaker of sparkling brown liquid. He raised it to his lips. With the first sip, his face brightened. With the second, he smiled and nodded his head at the chemist.
"Doctor Bradham, this is good!" Of course, the chemist was Caleb Bradham - the inventor of Pepsi-Cola - and James Henry King was sipping the first Pepsi-Cola ever made.
In the century since James Henry King first gave his nod of approval, millions of people all over the world have enjoyed the great taste of Pepsi-Cola. Today, Pepsi-Cola is sold in more than 190 countries and accounts for about one-quarter of the world's soft drinks. More than 70 percent of our sales are from North America, where we enjoyed strong growth and increased volume more than six percent in 1998.
Our well-known brands include Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, Pepsi One, Mountain Dew, Mug, All Sport, Lipton Brisk and Aquafina. In addition, salty snacks and juices are staples of our sister divisions, Frito-Lay and Tropicana. One of the biggest factors in the long-term success of a consumer products company is whether more people fall in love with your products each year. Pepsi-Cola strives to give people what they want, when and where they want it. To us, doing that very well is more important than anything else.
More than 100 years ago, in the little town of New Bern, North Carolina, there lived a restless young drugstore owner who once taught chemistry at a local academy. Noting that soft drinks were coming into great popularity, our chemist started experimenting with flavors and carbonated water.