A Toronto company is bottling a new Kraft Dinner-flavoured soda – and many folks are asking, “Is it a satirical prank?” My first reaction was, “They’re doing this just because they CAN – and to generate a lot of free media coverage…”
The middle last week, Solly’s Craft Soda, a brand that began brewing in Toronto in 2024, let loose on the public a new limited-edition beverage that blends Kraft Dinner’s mac and cheese flavour with cream soda to produce a ‘conversation-starting soda’.
At the very least…
This new product launch will certainly start conversations. Maybe even some heated arguments. But I won’t be part of it. I’m just reporting this superbly oddball product launch to ensure my dedicated readers will be well informed about the State of the Weird Food Union.
“KD x Solly’s Cream Soda is a whole new way for fans to experience their KD obsession,” Daniel Lund-berg, head of marketing and strategy at Kraft Heinz, said. “It’s something to crack open with friends, debate what it could possibly taste like and then satisfy your curiosity with that first sip. This is the kind of collaboration that shows just how far we can take the love people have for KD.”
And the new product hit lovers of things fringe and oddball square in the gob. And the first batch of the new bev sold out almost instantly. ” Well, that escalated quickly,” the Solly’s website reported. “The KD love has been unreal, and we want to make sure every order gets to you fresh and fast. So we’re temporarily pausing new orders while we catch up on fulfillment. We’ll be back open soon…”
Opinion splt
And the fan feedback as about evenly split between lovers and haters. Comments to the joint Insta-gram post announcing the release of the new quaff blanketed the extremes and left the centre bare.
The boosters were ecstatic:
“Diabolical. Can’t wait to try it,” one Instagram user quipped.
“Brb, searching for cheap flights to Canada so I can try this lol,” another chimed in.
And then there were the dissenters…
“This is satire, right, bro?” someone asked.
“Y’all are sick! (Save me one),” someone else wrote.
“Every day we stray further from God’s light,” one person wrote, ominously. Hard to tell if they were speaking in earnest or in jest…
My take
I guess these quirky, attention-getting products have their place in the greater food universe.
But I wonder if it wouldn’t have been smarter for KD, in the long run, to have focused more on some-thing more serious – perhaps a new product addressing the current consumer craze for healthier foods – than just tossing away a small fortune on marketing cash in what will undoubtedly turn out to be a short-lived promotional blast…
~ Maggie J.