Coca-Cola will stop producing Tab diet soda by the end of this year, the company announced on Friday.
“Tab did its job,” Diet Coke group director Kerri Kopp said in a statement, according to Fox News. “In order to continue to innovate and give consumers the choices they want today, we have to make decisions like this one as part of our portfolio rationalization work.”
Tab made up less than 0.03% of Coca-Cola’s total sales as of 2017, Fox reported.
The company is also phasing out other brands. ZICO coconut water, Coca-Cola Life, Diet Coke Feisty Cherry, Sprite Lymonade and Odwalla brands will be gone by the end of this year.
A team chosen from across the company had audited Coca-Cola’s portfolio and selected underperforming brands to be cut.
Coca-Cola has ramped up its efforts to pare back its beverage brands since the pandemic hit, USA Today reported. It has also announced it will offer buyouts to roughly 37% of its workforce in North America.
“We believe it will set us up with more momentum behind stronger brands as we come out of this crisis,” Chairman and CEO James Quincey said in a statement.
Coca-Cola first introduced Tab in 1963 as a precursor to Diet Coke. The company used saccharine to sweeten it, which has been linked to cancer in lab rats but not humans.
The soda has picked up a bit of a cult following. Many fans began to stockpile the soda in 2018 after supplies dwindled amid falling demand.
“We’re forever grateful to TaB for paving the way for the diets and lights category, and to the legion of TaB lovers who have embraced the brand for nearly six decades,” Kopp said in the statement. “If not for TaB, we wouldn’t have Diet Coke or Coke Zero Sugar.”
