Rarely has a drink arrived on the scene, taken a huge market share and then almost disappeared off the face of the earth in such a short space of time as the original Sunny Delight did in Britain. A £10 million promotional campaign upon its launch in the UK in Spring 1998 saw Sunny Delight become the third biggest-selling drink behind only Coca-Cola and Pepsi. Yet a negative Food Commission investigation - and reports of a girl being turned orange by the drink's beta-Carotene colouring - saw sales slashed by half by 2001. Despite a reinvention as "Sunny D" in 2003, the terminal decline had already taken hold and the drink has been relaunched on two further occasions since - but it no-longer resembles the original, e-number filled Sunny Delight.
NUFC editor for WhatCulture.com/NUFC. History graduate (University of Edinburgh) and NCTJ-trained journalist. I love sports, hopelessly following Newcastle United and Newcastle Falcons. My pastimes include watching and attending sports matches religiously, reading spy books and sampling ales.
