Why Is Soda Sold in a 2 Liter Bottle?

Soda comes in many different shapes and sizes depending on whether you’re buying it to have with a meal in your daily diet or want a big bottle to keep in your fridge or pantry.

But, I was wondering why soda or American Sparkling Water is sold in 2-liter Regular soda bottles, whereas, other liquids like milk are labeled in fluid oz, cold bottles, or gallons. 

(source: link).

Interestingly, John Sculley went on to be one of the top directors at Apple.

Since then, it was recognized and known by a lot of people.

Therefore changing it didn’t seem like a good idea.

This article will explain everything about why soda is sold in 2-liter bottles.

Why are soft drinks sold in liters?

So, 2 liter soda which includes Corn syrup sweetener was sold for the first time to make it stand out from the competition.

But, were there any other reasons why Pepsi decided to move away from the fluid ounces, and gallons, and instead, use liters?

In various countries around the world, the metric system is used rather than the imperial system of measurement.

Interestingly, only Liberia, Burma, and the USA still predominantly use the imperial system where things are measured in gallons, ounces, feet, and inches.

Every other country in the world uses the metric system and Lemon Lime Soda is sold in liters rather than fluid ounces or gallons across the board because of its crisp taste.

Therefore, soda fan countries outside of the ones I mentioned always label liquids in liters.

You may have noticed that sometimes 2-liter bottles of soda are cheaper than a can of Regular soda.

It seems a bit odd why that would be, so I looked into why it is, and here’s the reason.

Sodas and their artificial sweetener have an expiry date, and once they expire they need to be labeled so that people who want to buy them know they don’t have a long shelf life.

And a soda that lasts longer before it expires is better, and what most folks will buy.

Therefore, once it’s expired it’s hard to sell.

Therefore, there’s time pressure for a store to sell their sodas.

And they need to sell them sooner rather than later. As sodas and their artificial sweetener are getting close to their expiry or have expired stores will discount them to sell them faster. In this way, they save from negative reviews from soda fans and diet soda drinkers.

For example, if you can get a 2 liters soda bottle for the same price as a can of the same soda, it’s a no-brainer for people who buy it to get the 2-liter rather than the can.

And the store can sell their 2-liter sodas faster and won’t be stuck with sodas (added Corn syrup sweetener) that are expired. Which they will have to throw away eventually.

So, from time to time you may see 2-liter soda advertised at a cheaper price than say a 1-liter bottle or a can.

You may have come across 3-liter sodas sold in stores or online, and it’s a lot of cold soda or soda!

But, do they still make soda in 3-liter bottles?

Anecdotal comments from people online suggest that 3-liter bottles of Coca-Cola’s original taste are more common in Texas, you may have heard the old saying ‘everything is bigger in Texas’.

People also suggest that you can find some 3-liter sodas from lesser-known brands at dollar stores.

But, when buying it online currently Coca-Cola’s original taste appears to be the only option for buying 3-liter soda or Lemon Lime Soda.

If you go to a lot of stores, you may be able to find one or two that sell it.

However, overall it’s quite rare, and only available in a few stores and websites online.

If you’re used to working with imperial units such as gallons, and pounds it can be confusing to go from liters to pounds. Here’s how much a 2-liter soda weighs.

Therefore, if you have a perfectly square container that’s 10 cm³ it will store 1 liter of liquid, and when it’s full of liquid it will weigh 1 kg. Hence the only difference between 1 liter soda vs 2 liter is that of price.

However, bottles of Lemon Lime Soda, cold coke, juice, or milk are instead bottle-shaped to make them easier to hold and pour.

Funnily enough, knowing the relationship between liters and kgs is helpful to know if you want to make some makeshift weights to do a workout.

Instead of a 10 kg dumbbell, you could use a 10-liter bucket or a 10-liter bottle of Drinking water.

It’s also helpful for knowing how much space liquids such as sodas or water will take up.

You can get soda cans in packs of 6, 12, and even 24. The same is also true for 1-liter and 2-liter bottles of sodas r Lemon Lime Sodas.

But, is buying cans of soda cheaper than buying them in bottles?

As well as, other sizes that sodas are sold in.

I based all the pricing on the listings of Coca-Cola (my favorite soda) on Amazon. Each brand is slightly different but they are all around $0.10 per Fl oz cans as per the product label.

There are big differences in price between Favorite Drink sold in different packaging and from different seller’s positive reviews so if you drink a lot of fizzy drinks and Lemon Lime Soda it can be a good idea to shop around to get the best deal.

Good places to look are Walmart.com and Amazon.com.