Thursday, May 20, 2010

Cola Flavoured Yop: a Blast of Validation from the 1990s

‘You’re a liar’, ‘it was just a dream’, ‘don’t be stupid, they’d never mix yoghurt with cola’ and ‘my, haven’t we an active imagination?’; all replies I got to my recent suggestions that a Yop that was cola flavoured could be found on supermarket shelves at one stage during the early nineties.

Up until two years ago, Google went at least some way toward backing me up with a few sporadic mentions of it, but recently there’s been zip, nadda; absolutely nothing to suggest that such a Yop ever existed. So, I did the only thing I could: I e-mailed Yoplait’s Irish customer service address in hope that they could validate me where nobody else would. Then I waited. A day, two days, a week... I had visions of everybody in the customer services office having a laugh riot at the implication that a cola flavoured Yop ever existed. So, I pretty much gave up on the idea of ever being able to prove myself right. It was over. Or was it? Yesterday, I opened my hotmail and surprisingly, there was an e-mail from one Eve O’Leary. No prizes for guessing what she said, all that matters is that yes, they did exist and no, I amn’t losing my mind. Yet. Validation achieved, and here’s the screencap to prove it!


What I find interesting is of course the mention that it may be reconsidered as a flavour at some stage. Naturally you’d take a comment like that with a pinch of salt, but my nostalgic, ignorant inner child really does hope it happens. If they did, I’d at least know if my memory’s in full working order and I still do actually remember what they taste like. Back then at the age of four-ish, anything cola flavoured was considered a treat so naturally I only got to taste two or three of these pan dairy-mineral delights before they were banned altogether. Nonetheless, the flavour has, for some odd reason, stuck with me. Well, what I think it tasted like has.

So, I’d like to say a big thank you to Eve O’Leary at Glanbia for taking the time to respond to my odd enquiry. Not only has she validated my sanity, but she’s proven all of the doubters wrong. All that’s left now is to kick start a petition to return cola flavoured Yops to our shelves and my work here will be done!

7 comments:

  1. Is now the time to tell you that when I was a child (yeah, I know... when TV was in black & white...) that you could get Chocolate flavoured Yoplait yoghurt which had an oddly fizzy mouthfeel!

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  2. It'd be the perfect time. What we need is a compendium of flavours so that we can correctly make demands. It worked for the Wispa campaign, it can work for us too!

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  3. Hi Robert, great post! Looking forward to hearing what you create from your "loot".

    Thanks a million for adding me to your blogroll :-}}

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  4. I was addicted to the Cola flavoured Yop i was about 12 when it came out and i remember it clearly, every friday i used to buy Barbeque ribs in the Chinese and wash it down with the Yop,,, people used to laugh at me too when i told asked them if they liked it

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  5. I was searching for cola Yop on Google and was brought to this page. One of my friends actually thinks I made up the fact that cola Yop even existed. But I know it did and I want to taste that yoghurty cola awesomeness once more!

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  6. YES! I wasn't dreaming it either - I remember getting it in a shop in Glencolmcille and it tasted sort of fizzy... like liquid cola chew bars. Still, at least I know I'm not mental now.

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  7. I dont know about cola flavoured YOP, but I know we used to get Cola Yoghurt in primary school back in the late 1970's. The queue for seconds was always VERY long,

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