Coca-Cola to can Tab’s 57-year run
Tab has finally lost its fizz. After a remarkable 57-year-run as Coca-Cola’s first diet soft drink, the company announced on Friday that it is ceasing production of the beverage mainstay.
“We’re forever grateful to Tab for paving the way for the diets and lights category, and to the legion of Tab lovers who have embraced the brand for nearly six decades,” said Coca-Cola group director Kerri Kopp in a statement. “If not for Tab, we wouldn’t have Diet Coke or Coke Zero Sugar.”
Hitting store shelves in 1963, Tab was one of America’s most popular sodas throughout the 1970s and early ’80s, thanks to upbeat TV ads featuring a catchy jingle and sexy, thin actors.
Initially marketed to women, the saccharin-laden drink was slapped with a warning sticker during the 1970s after lab studies
The man who allegedly sparked a catastrophic subway train derailment in Manhattan last month pleaded not guilty to a slew of charges on Friday.
Demetrius Harvard, 30, displayed a “depraved indifference to human life” on Sept. 20 when he recklessly dropped metal rail tie plates onto the A revealed a bladder-cancer link between the sweetener and rats.
Despite the ominous label, Tab sales continued to thrive until 1982, when newcomer Diet Coke began ruling the diet-cola roost.
Tab follows the ranks of Odwalla juices and Zico coconut water into the scrapheap of failing Coca-Cola beverage brands and will be phased out by the end of 2020.
The company also stated that it will pour its energy into more popular products as well as promising up-and-comers such as AHA sparkling water, Coca-Cola Energy and Topo Chico Hard Seltzer. line tracks at 14th St., prosecutors said at his Manhattan Supreme Court arraignment.
Judge Laura Ward held Harvard without bail and ordered he undergo a psychiatric evaluation.
The train was about 50 feet into the West Village station when it ran into the metal tie plates, also known as D plates, and
“This is not a bottom-line efficiency play,” explained Coca-Cola senior vice president of innovation and commercialization Brad Spickert. S “It’s a top-line growth play.” p
Still, the demise of Tab will surely s be a blow to its many admirers, including Robert Bixby, who has been guzzling it down since the 1970s. Fearing that the brand was hurtling toward its demise, Bixby added that he has been auditioning replacement diet sodas but finds them all too sweet.
“Tab had an amazing run,” said the executive director at Concord Coalition, according to CNN Business. “As a business decision I can understand it, but it’s a very sad day. ... I do feel it’s like losing a friend.”
During the summer, Coca-Cola announced it was offering buyouts to approximately 4,000 of its employees as part of a major workforce overhaul amid the COVID-19 outbreak. careened off the tracks, court filings show.
The brazen act caused the northbound train to derail and smash into four support pillars, a grand jury found. It was one of the city’s most catastrophic train derailments in years.
Witnesses saw Harvard laughing at the disaster as it played out, sources said. He was held at the station by a group of good Samaritans until cops arrived and took him into custody, cops said.
Harvard is due back in court on December 7. He stands charged with reckless engagement, criminal, unlawful interference with a railroad train, and other related charges.