From This Day Forward, The UK Drink Lilt Is Rebranded As Fanta
A trip abroad is incomplete without a visit to a local grocery store, as half the fun of traveling is perusing unfamiliar foodstuffs and discovering new favorites to gift to friends back home. Americans visiting the U.K. for the first time would be remiss not to explore the sundries that resemble comparable products from the U.S. but go by different names, like alternative-universe versions of the snacks they're used to.
Chips aren't chips, they're crisps. Fries aren't fries, they're chips. Cookies aren't cookies, they're biscuits. Soda isn't soda (or pop), it's fizzy drink.
One such fizzy drink is Lilt, a "totally tropical" carbonated refreshment with a sunny pineapple and grapefruit flavor. But if you're in England right now and are scouring the shelves for it, don't expect to find it under that name. On Feb. 14, the drink adopted a name that's more recognizable to folks in the States: Fanta.
Don't you wanna?
Coca-Cola has changed the name of Lilt, which was branded as such for 50 years in the U.K., Ireland, Gibraltar, and Seychelles, to Fanta Pineapple & Grapefruit, BBC News reports.
According to the beverage corporation, the soda's name and packaging are the only things that will change. The original Lilt recipe will remain the same. "Our main priority with this announcement is to reassure Lilt's loyal fanbase that absolutely nothing has changed when it comes to the iconic taste of the drink they know and love," said Coca-Cola Europacific Partners VP Martin Attock in a statement.
Some Brits might remember the drink's popular "Lilt Man" commercial (ahem, advert) of the 1980s, in which a parody of the proverbial milkman delivered a "Lilt float" on a sunny beach. Now, shoppers can find the drink in its new Fanta Pineapple & Grapefruit packaging, available in bottles and cans.