Good Eats: A Facelift for Tropicana

Modern facelift, or PR disaster? That's the question before readers at Serious Eats this week. Pepsi just overhauled their own look, as well as that of Tropicana orange juice. What do you think?

This plus more favorite posts from our friends at Serious Eats in this edition of our weekly roundup. We've got a fried egg t-shirt, the real story behind gruel, a favorite artisanal cheese, and a scrumptious pasta dish below.

• Tropicana, Pepsi Overhaul Packaging - Pepsi is getting kudos for their new look, but Tropicana...not so much. Read all about the controversy (and why Tropicana's new design is bad for color-blind shoppers).

• Gruel, the Real Deal - "Please, sir, can I have some more?" What did Oliver Twist's gruel really taste like? Members of The Royal Society of Chemistry in London have it figured out.

• Fried Egg T-Shirt- A freakishly huge fried egg - bubbles, yolk, and all!

• Dinner Tonight: Pasta with Olive Tapenade - A great pantry meal.

• Serious Cheese: My Favorite American Artisanal Cheese - Jamie Forrest makes us crave Sweet Grass Dairy's Green Hill cheese; we can almost taste it.

Previous Good Eats: Good Eats: Bacon and Lentil Soup

Comments (16)

I did a double take in my Fresh Direct order because I thought they'd subbed a generic for Tropicana. I think the new packaging looks kind of retro, actually. I don't really care what the package looks like, though. I just want the juice.

i like the redesign well enough...as long as they don't mess with the fruitjuice. i guess the same goes for pepsi....sugarjuice!

I think that it looks too much as a generic box.. The packaging before was way nicer and easy to recognize. They should have kept something from it. The logo is not big enough. There is no hierarchy. But still, their juice is good, and people will get used to the new packaging and drink it.

I think the packages look good, but they remind me of a brand of cough syrup my mother gave me as kid.

I just noticed that the cap is a little orange with leaves on the carton. Awwwww!

I don't like it...I actually think it took me 5 minutes to figure out where my particular "variety" of Tropicana orange juice was on the shelf. And I'm not even color blind!

My gf and I were discussing this a few days ago. We agree - the redesign is awful and VERY generic.

Does it look retro? Yes.

Unfortunately this kind of retro reminds me of wood paneled stationwagons rather than Saturday Night Fever.

ACTUALLY - this reminds me of a very old Wendy's commercial from the 80's that made fun of Soviet culture. I don't remember too much other than a bunch of clothing models wearing exactly the same thing walking the catwalk while someone was reading a card saying things like "Is next... swimwear!"

The redesign helps me distinguish it from other brands, which is helpful, and I was so confused the first time I saw it- I was convinced it was generic! There's really nothing retro about it except the faux-helvetica--it's just a poor design decision.

I don't usually buy OJ but I was just picking some up yesterday and my eyes glazed right over these cartons and focused on the other, more orange-y brands. By the time I realized that the white cartons were Tropicana (I was wondering why the selection seemed so slim) I'd already picked out another brand.

its a branding disaster! I work in marketing & the package now looks totally generic...plus its hard to distinguish the different varieties. We thought we were buying pulp free OJ but instead came home with tangerine & orange OJ...way too hard to tell apart. A definite miss in re-branding.

It looks fine, but I had no warning, so I spent a good five minutes standing in front of the orange juice at the grocery store last weekend, staring at the Tropicana and wondering why the grocery store wasn't selling Tropicana anymore. When I finally realized that what I was looking at WAS Tropicana, I did a double take and stuck it in my cart, very relieved - I hate orange juice, but my husband loves it, and I didn't know what I would tell him if I came home without his favorite. Now that I understand what it is, I actually think the packaging is pretty cool. But those were some tense moments last week.

The Pepsi redesign is hilarious. I kind of like how the logos are slightly modified for the different products.

Not sure why Tropicana felt they needed to update their image. Not sure why many companies feel the need to update their images if they are already iconic. And straw in orange is pretty iconic.

I guess someone has to keep all these graphic design grads in business.

Its funny, I've spoken to a few people about this and everyone seems to have the same story - either they or someone they know went right past the Tropicana because they didn't recognize it at first and thought the store had sold out. The Tropicana products were bypassed because they appeared to be generics/store brand.

Not a fan. It looks cheap.

hywel.thomas@businessfruit.com has the best take on the pepsi redesign!