Our rivalry with Coca-Cola didn’t help matters. Coke had no food division, but Coke versus Pepsi was firmly embedded in the popular imagination. Our strategies and stocks were repeatedly compared, and any divergence surprised or worried the market. This made change tougher for us. We were always pinned to the cola wars. But, in reality, the two companies were very different. Unfortunately, the longtime beverage analysts and reporters who covered us were comfortably stuck on old comparisons as opposed to the new reality of our portfolios. It was frustrating indeed. For example, in 2006,
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