Kraft Foods senior executive, Pacific Cooler creator
In 1984, I created the Capri Sun flavor known as Pacific Cooler. It was a huge hit, and it quickly became the most popular Capri Sun flavor. Three decades later, Pacific Cooler remains the greatest success of my career. It has brought me wealth, the respect of my peers, and a feeling that I have left a lasting mark on the world.
However, Pacific Cooler has become so popular that it has gone on to completely overshadow the many other delicious flavors of Capri Sun, and if I had known that this would happen, I would never have invented it.
I hope no one takes this the wrong way. I love Pacific Cooler, and I’m remarkably proud of it. It tastes extremely good, and it’s incredibly flattering that when most people think of Capri Sun, Pacific Cooler is the first thing that they think of. But ever since I invented it, more and more people have been drinking Pacific Cooler exclusively and neglecting the other delicious Capri Sun flavors like Tropical Blast, Lemon Drop, and Surfer Cooler. This is beyond unfair. This is devastating.
You see, Capri Sun was intended to be a spectrum of flavors, with each new pouch delighting the palate in new and challenging ways. By inventing Pacific Cooler, I reduced the Capri Sun experience to a single flavor—I diminished the rainbow of tastes that our concentrated juice blends were always meant to be.
The greatest Capri Sun flavor ever invented is Safari Fruits, but nobody ever drinks it anymore because Pacific Cooler is such an out-of-control blockbuster.
The worst part is that, deep in my heart, I know that Pacific Cooler isn’t even the best Capri Sun flavor. The cold, hard truth? The greatest Capri Sun flavor ever invented is Safari Fruits, but nobody ever drinks it anymore because Pacific Cooler is such an out-of-control blockbuster. It’s true. Pacific Cooler is a great flavor, but Safari Fruits is a masterpiece. Safari Fruits deserves all the accolades and popularity of Pacific Cooler, and it’s perverse and unjust that my invention should overshadow it.
Truth be told, if I had known that the success of Pacific Cooler would eventually deprive the world of the sweet magnificence of Safari Fruits, I would have dumped every single tank of Pacific Cooler into the ocean.
In an ideal world, people would enjoy all of the amazing flavors that Capri Sun has to offer. For every Pacific Cooler they drank, they would also experience the incredible tastes of Strawberry Kiwi, Green Granberry, and Cola Mix. Instead, people only drink Pacific Cooler. Some people think it’s the only Capri Sun flavor there is. The flavor I created has become a monolithic cancer that has entirely homogenized the Capri Sun universe. What a loss for mankind.
Pacific Cooler may be my crowning achievement in this world, but to this day, I regret inventing it. For all the joy it has brought me, it has brought me sorrow in equal measure. It remains my greatest success and my greatest failure. My greatest gift and my greatest curse. The greatest joy of my life, and my eternal tormentor.
May God have mercy on my soul.
