Pepsi RAW... And Why I'm Tired of Asda's Antics

I read on an online news site that I frequently read that Pepsi was releasing a new product geared towards people like me and that the UK was to be the test market. Then later that day I saw what confirmed that on the side of a Birmingham bus as it passed me by. (Also confirming that buses are good for something other than keeping bad drivers behind the wheels of those huge monstrosities where they are easily spottable.)

The new Pepsi product is their first in over 10 years or something and I think they are hitting into quite a unique market. The product is called Pepsi RAW and is completely made of all natural ingredients except for the carbonation of course. I looked online and found a little bit of info on the product and saw that it was to be available in pretty much all the major UK grocery stores including my local one, ASDA.


So I went in there to buy some but there is nothing anywhere in the store and no one has a clue what I am talking about. And really this was the excuse I had been looking for to go to another supermarket other than the local ASDA that I shopped at regularly or the local Morrison that I never took a liking to.

I have had a series of issue with ASDA as of late. First off they move products way to often. I mean for the first 3 years almost nothing ever moved. And now in the past year they seem to move shit every month to a new location. And not just from the top of the aisle to the bottom but moving a section of products to a total new aisle in a completely new area of the store.


Products that I have been buying for 3 years just disappear and no one has an answer as to why. Like Bertolli pasta sauce. Other products they never seemed to have and never get anyway. Like Green Beans. Damn store has 4 shelves full of peas in a whole variety of ways but no damn green beans.

Then they have a full stock of Ben & Jerry's ice cream but don't stock the best flavor they make named Cherry Garcia.

But the thing that they have done that really is driving me away was this whole thing about not wanting to provide any shopping bags. If I pay £150 to £225 on grocery's, damn it I want free bags. I like plastic shopping bags. No, really I do. I use them for a multitude of purposes including as liners for my small waste baskets I have around the house.

Why should I, the well paying customer have to pay you 5p for some crap green bag that I can't fit much into when it doesn't even fit my small waste basket! Don't tell me the environment! I understand that these bags can take 1000 years to degrade into the earth but that isn't my problem. Government should pass a law making the companies who produce the bags to make them more friendly to the Earth. Not try to push the stores to get me to stop using them.

So, one night after class in Solihull I stopped by the Sainsburys and went in because I was sure they would have Pepsi RAW and sure enough they did. And I only intended to buy that but I found a whole range of Bertolli pasta sauces, massive amounts of green beans, mini pretzels, fresh bagels, Pizza Express frozen Pizzas and most shockingly of all... FRANK'S RED HOT SAUCE!!!!


No more begging friends on the Air Force bases in Suffolk to bring it to me!!

And they let me take as many orange plastic shopping bags as I wanted... Free of charge!

And the Pepsi RAW tastes pretty good. Less carbonation but pretty close in flavor. The cans are the same size as a traditional Red Bull can but they have old school glass bottles as well...