As Pepsi was struggling to market its Yoo-hoo competitor, Devil Shake, Coca-Cola was looking to shake things up with Saci. Launched in Brazil around 1968, Saci was an attempt to market a chocolate-flavored nutrition drink. The company hoped to convince locals to adopt its offering while also addressing protein malnutrition in developing regions.
Coca-Cola Failed Protein? It is hard to imagine a world where Coca-Cola struggled to sell protein, especially considering they now own 100% of FairLife. But in 1968, the technology to make protein taste this good simply didn’t exist yet.
Initially launched in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Saci was made with soybean protein, cocoa beans, and sugar. Like Yoo-hoo and Pepsi’s Devil Shake, it was non-carbonated. Vitamins were also added to further combat malnutrition.
The Origin of the Saci Name
To give the drink a strong local identity, Coca-Cola named the beverage after Saci-Pererê, a legendary one-legged trickster from Tupi and Guarani folklore. In Brazilian culture, Saci is a pipe-smoking boy with a magical red cap who travels in dust devils and thrives on playing annoying pranks. By rooting the brand in such a deeply recognizable figure, Coca-Cola hoped to make a “scientific” nutritional supplement feel like a friendly, everyday local staple.
However, using a trickster god for a health drink was a bit of a gamble. While the character is iconic, he is rarely associated with “wholesome” energy or reliable nutrition. Coca-Cola marketed the drink as a “super-soda” that promised strength and vitality for children, but there was a fundamental disconnect: parents were being asked to trust their children’s health to a character famous for being a chaotic prankster.
Weird But True: During this same era in Brazil, Coca-Cola bottles were actually used as a form of political protest. Artist Cildo Meireles would print messages like “Yankees Go Home” or instructions on how to make a Molotov cocktail on the bottles in white ink that only became visible once the bottle was filled with the dark soda.
Why Did Saci Fail?
Beyond the political backdrop and the choice of a trickster mascot, Saci faced a more fundamental problem that no amount of cultural relevance could fix: it simply didn’t taste very good. The drink failed to find a home with Brazilians and was discontinued by the early 1970s due to a combination of sensory, logistical, and identity issues.
- The Beany Taste: The soybean protein used by Coca-Cola gave the drink a beany aftertaste that was difficult to completely mask.
- The Marketing Confusion: Brazilians didn’t see the drink as a refreshing treat, like a soda. However, it wasn’t seen as a meal replacement or a source of nutrition. The local people would rather drink an actual soda as a refreshing beverage or a rich dairy-based drink for protein.
- Logistics and Cost: Coca-Cola had hoped to not only address nutrition but also to utilize local Brazilian agricultural products. However, the specialized processing required to make a shelf-stable, soy-based protein drink was expensive at the time.
The high cost and confused marketing identity was a death blow. Coca-Cola had an expensive product without a category. Add to this the cost of the marketing efforts, which were confusing at best, and the product’s demise was inevitable.
🐄 Did you know? Coca-Cola was never done with “protein-based” drinks. If you are familiar with the FairLife line of high-protein milk and protein drinks, you may be suprised to learn that this brand is owned 100% by Coca-Cola.
The Legacy of Saci: Sanson and Tai
Soy protein is successfully used in protein drinks today. Modern soy protein isolates are quite neutral-tasting. However, early soy protein beverages were quite “beany,” bitter, and astringent in comparison. Coca-Cola wasn’t done with the category, however.
The failure of Saci didn’t dampen Coca-Cola’s belief that “functional beverages” were the future of the Latin American market. However, the company realized they needed to pivot their strategy to solve the flavor and cost issues that had doomed their first attempt. This led to a two-pronged experiment: shifting from soy to dairy with Sanson, and eventually abandoning the protein concept altogether with Tai.
Sanson was the immediate successor, trading the “beany” soy protein for whey and dairy. Named after the biblical figure Samson, the marketing leaned heavily into physical power and vitality, positioning it as a competitor to existing chocolate milk drinks like Devil Shake. While the taste was an improvement over Saci, Sanson quickly ran into the “Yoo-hoo problem.” Keeping a dairy-based beverage shelf-stable in Brazil’s climate required expensive pasteurization equipment that made the product difficult to scale profitably.
As the dairy experiment struggled, Coca-Cola introduced Tai. While it initially carried a soy-and-whey protein blend, the company finally recognized that consumers were looking for refreshment, not a meal in a bottle. In 1979, Coca-Cola made the radical decision to strip the protein entirely. They rebranded Tai as a guaraná-flavored soft drink to take on local giants like Antarctica and Brahma. It was a final, pragmatic admission that in the 1970s, the “super-soda” concept was a bridge too far—a mission that would eventually find its success decades later with the launch of FairLife.
💡 Hungry for more history? If you think high-protein chocolate water was a tough sell, wait until you read about the time a baby food giant tried to feed adults from jars. Check out the Gerber adult baby food marketing failure to see how even the biggest brands can miss the mark.
Coca-Cola’s South American Chocolate Drink Timeline
While the individual stories of these drinks are unique, viewing them chronologically reveals a company determined to master the “functional beverage” market long before it was a global trend. This timeline tracks the evolution of Coca-Cola’s protein experiments in Brazil, from the ambitious soy-based beginnings of Saci to the eventual pivot of Tai into the fruit-soda market.
| Drink | Launch Year | Primary Protein Source | Fate |
| Saci | 1968 | Soybean Protein | Discontinued mid-1970s. |
| Sanson | ~1970 | Whey / Dairy-based | Replaced Saci in some markets but failed to scale. |
| Tai | 1970s | Soy & Whey blend | Rebranded and pivoted several times; eventually retired. |
| Drink | Launch Year | Primary Protein Source | Fate |
| Saci | 1968 | Soybean Protein | Discontinued mid-1970s. |
| Sanson | ~1970 | Whey / Dairy-based | Replaced Saci in some markets but failed to scale. |
| Tai | 1970s | Soy & Whey blend | Rebranded and pivoted several times; eventually retired. |
Saci, Sanson, and Tai Marketing Slogans Compared
Beyond the ingredients, the success or failure of these beverages often came down to how they were positioned in the minds of Brazilian consumers. By comparing their brand identities, we can see a shift in strategy—moving from deep-rooted local folklore and “scientific” nutrition toward more traditional themes of physical power and modern refreshment.
| Drink | Identity / Icon | Main Marketing Angle |
| Saci | Saci-Pererê (Folk Character) | Social Impact & Nutrition: Positioned as a “super-soda” designed to fight malnutrition using local Brazilian soy. |
| Sanson | Strength / Power (Samson) | Physical Vitality: A shift toward a “muscle” drink identity, focusing on the protein benefits for active youth. |
| Tai | Modernity / Refreshment | Pure Enjoyment: Originally launched with a “scientific” angle, it was eventually rebranded to focus entirely on its contagious, fruity flavor. |
| Drink | Identity / Icon | Main Marketing Angle |
| Saci | Saci-Pererê (Folk Character) | Social Impact & Nutrition: Positioned as a “super-soda” designed to fight malnutrition using local Brazilian soy. |
| Sanson | Strength / Power (Samson) | Physical Vitality: A shift toward a “muscle” drink identity, focusing on the protein benefits for active youth. |
| Tai | Modernity / Refreshment | Pure Enjoyment: Originally launched with a “scientific” angle, it was eventually rebranded to focus entirely on its contagious, fruity flavor. |
From “Beany” Beginnings to Modern Success with Fairlife
The story of Saci and its successors serves as a fascinating case study in being “too early” to a trend. Coca-Cola’s 1960s vision of a high-protein, functional beverage was hindered by the technological limitations of the era—specifically the difficult-to-mask “beany” taste of early soy isolates and the high cost of shelf-stable dairy processing. This wasn’t the last time a beverage giant would face a hurdle with a new launch; in fact, the industry is full of examples where marketing and timing didn’t quite align, much like the Maxwell House branding mistake of 1990.
However, the company clearly never lost its appetite for the protein market. Decades after Saci disappeared from Brazilian shelves, Coca-Cola finally achieved its “functional” goal through the acquisition of FairLife. By leveraging modern ultra-filtration techniques that were non-existent in the 60s, they managed to solve the taste and texture issues that once doomed their Brazilian experiments. It turns out that while the folklore-inspired marketing of the past didn’t stick, the underlying mission to reinvent how we drink protein was just waiting for the technology to catch up.