We have all heard the stories over the years of how some soft drinks can corrode oneâs teeth and other body parts.
The question now is can a soft drink like Mountain Dew actually dissolve a mouse carcass?
A current small court battle involves an Illinois man who claims he discovered a deceased mouse in a can of Mountain Dew at work three years ago after taking a sip.
From a marketing standpoint, such a claim certainly canât be good for the soft drink maker that goes by the slogan â “It’ll tickle yore innards”. Worse yet, the man claims he forwarded the mouse to PepsiCo, the soft drinkâs parent company, only to reportedly have the rodentâs remains destroyed.
Call in the experts
In order to fight the court case (the individual is seeking $50,000 in damages), PepsiCo has called in experts to say that the claim of a rodent or any other foreign body in one of their soft drink products is simply false.
The experts pointed out that the Mountain Dew drink would have dissolved the mouse, turning it into a “jelly-like substance,” had it been in the can of fluid from the time of its bottling until the time the claimant opened it, 74 days later.
According to a spokesperson with the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, he believed it was plausible that the soft drink could dissolve a mouse over a few monthsâ time. “But dissolving [the mouse] does not mean it will disappear, because you’ll still have the collagen and the soft tissue part. It will be like rubber,” he made clear in his remarks.
According to a 2004 study where human molars were soaked in Mountain Dew for 14 days (a period of time similar to about 13 years of normal beverage exposure, the researchers calculated) the molars’ enamel lost more than 6 percent of its volume. Meantime, molars placed in Coca Cola for two weeks lost slightly more than 1 percent of their enamel volume.
Will marketing take a hit?
While sales of Mountain Dew may not be impacted by the ongoing legal case, it does make it a little harder to market the soft drink, given the fact some may wonder what is coming out of each can.
In early 2011, a Washington State man claimed to have also discovered a dead mouse in a Monster Energy Drink product.
According to the man who filed a lawsuit, âAny time somebody talks about Monster I get a sick feeling in the bottom of my stomach. âI looked in the can and I saw the tail â the tip of the tail. And I just vomited everywhere,â said the young male, who sued for physical and emotional damages.
Needless to say, such reported incidents make it a tad more challenging for any brands to market their goods.
That being said, Pepsi has heavily invested in the marketing of Mountain Dew products over the last decade, securing some 80 percent of the citrus flavored soft drink sales nationwide.
While these two incidents do not appear to have impacted sales in a negative way, you can bet such claims will leave a bitter taste in the mouth of marketers at the respective soft drink companies.
Photo credit: bossip.com
Dave Thomas, who covers among other items starting a small business and business proposals, writes extensively for Business.com, an online resource destination for businesses of all sizes to research, find, and compare the products and services they need to run their businesses.