For years, bigger was better. Customers wanted their fast-food meals supersized, their pre-packaged snacks in bulk, and their movie theater concessions large enough to last a triple feature.

These days, consumer preferences have changed. Diet trends and growing financial pressures have shoppers reaching for smaller portion sizes and more reasonably priced options.

The trend has prompted PepsiCo to release some of its best-selling products in smaller sizes, making them more appealing to consumers and helping the beverage giant more directly compete with its largest rival, The Coca-Cola Company.

PepsiCo quietly adds new bottle size

Over the weekend, one eagle-eyed Pepsi fan on social media platform Reddit noticed the company had added a 13-ounce bottle of Mountain Dew Baja Blast to its SmartLabel page. 

For the uninitiated, SmartLabel is a digital platform and barcode system that gives consumers full access to the ingredients, allergens, and uses of any given product. It also generally lists every iteration of every product a company currently has on the U.S. market.

A closer look through PepsiCo’s SmartLabel page reveals there are actually five sodas currently offered in this 13-ounce size: Pepsi, Pepsi Zero Sugar, Mountain Dew, Diet Mountain Dew, and Mountain Dew Baja Blast.

As of this writing, PepsiCo has not released any official announcement about the new sizes nor told consumers where they can find them. But a deeper dive into Pepsi’s current size offerings, and those of competitor Coca-Cola, gives a clearer picture of the market gap it might be trying to fill with the new release.

Before the debut of its 13-ounce bottles, PepsiCo offered its single-serve sodas in four different formats:

  • Standard can at 12 ounces
  • Mini-can at 7.5 ounces
  • Standard bottle at 20 ounces
  • Slim bottle at 16.9 ounces

The Coca-Cola Company has equivalent sizing with one notable difference — in 2022, it introduced a new line of 12.9-ounce bottles.

It stands to reason, then, that this new PepsiCo size is intended as a response to Coca-Cola’s mini bottles. 

PepsiCo quietly added a line of 13-ounce bottles to its product range in May.

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Why PepsiCo needs new soda sizes

Beyond matching The Coca-Cola Company’s product lineup, what’s the point of these new mini bottles? 

On the surface, the new packaging feels a little redundant. After all, Pepsi previously offered several similarly sized options.

But the new format actually fills a pretty substantial gap in the company’s catalog.

For starters, the new mini bottles will likely fill a price-point gap. A perusal of national retailers such as Walmart reveals that Coca-Cola’s 12.9-ounce bottles typically cost around $2. Meanwhile, Pepsi’s smallest bottle size, the 16.9-ounce slim bottle, runs closer to $3.

If Pepsi follows a similar pricing strategy to Coca-Cola, the new format will give consumers a more wallet-friendly option for their afternoon pick-me-up. 

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A study by the National Association of Convenience Stores found that younger consumers, in this case Gen Z and Gen Alpha, tend to prioritize lower unit prices over bulk savings when making snacking decisions. 

So while a dollar difference in price may not have meant much to older generations, it could have a significant impact on what these younger consumers choose to buy. If Pepsi is able to offer products at the same price points as Coca-Cola, it will be better positioned to compete with these younger consumers.

The new mini bottle format is also better adapted to current diet trends. With the rise of GLP-1 use, many consumers are more conscious than ever about their calorie and sugar intake.

A smaller amount of soda will, by default, have less sugar and fewer calories. So these new sizes could allow GLP-1 users and other health-conscious consumers to indulge in their favorite carbonated beverages without being concerned about overdoing it on the sweeteners or taking in too many calories in a sitting.

As shoppers continue gravitating toward lower-cost indulgences and more manageable portion sizes, smaller bottles could become an increasingly important battleground in the ongoing competition between PepsiCo and Coca-Cola.

In other words, Pepsi’s newest bottle may be small — but the strategy behind it is much bigger.

Related: Coca-Cola’s new LTO cans create a shopping problem