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Pepsi with milk and cookies? The company wants a new twist on Santa’s treat
There’s nothing like celebrating the holiday season by leaving Santa Claus with his favorite snack: milk and cookies – with soda.
Pepsi unveiled its latest campaign Thursday, encouraging those who enjoy milk and cookies to add “a surprising and naughty new twist” to it by adding Pepsi to the milk, turning it into Pilk and Cookies.
Todd Kaplan, Pepsi’s chief marketing officer, in a statement insisted the combination has “long been a secret hack among Pepsi fans.”
To help launch the promotion, Pepsi got the help of Lindsay Lohan, who recently starred in Netflix’s “Falling for Christmas” and has been associated with Christmas since her “Jingle Bell Rock” performance in the 2004 film “Mean Girls.”
If you’re hesitant to try the drink yourself, Pepsi offers some recipes for people to try, like “The Naughty & Ice,” which involves mixing whole milk, heavy cream and vanilla creamer into a cup of Pepsi and enjoying it with a chocolate cookie chips. Another recipe, “The Cherry on Top,” uses 2% milk, heavy cream and caramel creamer into a cup of Pepsi Wild Cherry, pairing it with a gingerbread cookie.
Lohan said in a statement she was at first skeptical of the combinations, but she was “amazed at how delicious it was.”
Pepsi is also issuing a #PilkandCookies challenge by having people follow the company on Instagram, Twitter or TikTok and share a video or photo of their Pilk and Cookies creations along with the hashtag. Pepsi will select 25 winners who will win cash. The challenge is open through Dec. 25.
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What is ‘dirty soda’?
Pilk and Cookies comes as the drink idea known as “dirty soda” – mixing soda with ingredients like cream, half and half and puree – has become an increasingly popular trend.
“Now with the rise of the ‘dirty soda’ trend on TikTok and throughout the country, we thought Pilk and Cookies would be a great way to unapologetically celebrate the holidays with a new and delicious way to enjoy Pepsi this season,” Kaplan said.
The origins of “dirty soda” are unknown, but the trend began to pick up in 2010 when Swig, dubbed the “home of ‘dirty’ soda,” opened up in St. George, Utah. The soda business grew in popularity in a predominantly Mormon area, according to the New York Times, as the church prohibits hot caffeinated drinks such as tea and coffee.
The drink gained nationwide popularity in December 2021 when singer Olivia Rodrigo posted a picture of herself holding a Swig cup on Instagram. Eater reported in April there were over 700,000 mentions of #dirtysoda on TikTok following Rodrigo’s post.
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Samaritan’s Purse crosses the threshold of 100M pounds of food distributed in war-torn Ukraine
Samaritan’s Purse, the North Carolina-based international Christian relief and evangelism organization, has achieved a significant milestone: It has just crossed the threshold of 100 million pounds of food distributed in the war-torn country of Ukraine.
The organization shared the update with Fox News Digital on Monday.
Every week since the Russia-Ukraine conflict began on Feb. 24, the charitable group has been flying relief supplies and food to Ukraine for the scores of innocent people caught in the crosshairs of war.
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Rev. Franklin Graham, CEO and president of Samaritan’s Purse, told Fox News Digital on Monday, “As winter sets in, things in Ukraine are only getting worse.”
He said that “many areas have lost electricity and food is impossible to buy in eastern parts of the country [that are] closer to the fighting.”
A man in Ukraine carries a bag of food distributed by Samaritan’s Purse.
(Samaritan’s Purse)
He added, “Samaritan’s Purse has been buying and bringing food into the country every week. We are also receiving food from the World Food Program.”
As of this week, Samaritan’s Purse has distributed more than 100 million pounds of food — or over 45,000 metric tons — to the people of Ukraine caught up in war.
(Samaritan’s Purse)
Added Rev. Graham, “As of this week, we have distributed more than 100 million pounds (over 45,000 metric tons). We are working with our network of churches across Ukraine to distribute this food to people in need and remind them that God loves them.”
“We need to continue to pray that God will work in the hearts of the leaders involved to bring an end to the conflict that has brought so much pain and devastation,” he said.
Monday, Dec. 5, 2022, marks day no. 285 in the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Every week, Samaritan’s Purse imports 1.4 million pounds of food into Ukraine, the organization said.
(Samaritan’s Purse)
Each week, Samaritan’s Purse has been bringing 1.4 million pounds of food to Ukraine, it was reported.
“Stores and shops have closed, leaving no way for people to buy food.”
On Monday, it reached the major threshold of having distributed 100 million pounds of food.
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The organization said that in dangerous areas, “stores and shops have closed, leaving no way for people to buy food.”
Samaritan’s Purse has been helping the people of Ukraine since the earliest days of the war.
(Samaritan’s Purse)
Many of the people “desperate for food can only take what they can carry – so the food is given to people in grocery bags,” he said.
The group also told Fox News Digital, “Some of the brave pastors and church leaders that we are partnering with are also taking these food distributions into the conflict zone. They face dangerous conditions to reach distribution points.”
Rev. Franklin Graham (at right) was shown earlier this year in one of the medical clinics his organization set up in Ukraine amid the war.
(Samaritan’s Purse)
The organization continued, “These unsung heroes take buses, vans and even their own vehicles loaded with food and other relief supplies from Samaritan’s Purse to people who are suffering deeply in the conflict.”
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The pastors “also offer to help those residents who are evacuees — and some people have been able to get to safety through these missions.”
Rev. Graham himself has visited Ukraine twice since the conflict began. He is hoping to return sometime in January, the group said.
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Both sides in the war have been taking hits, as explosions rocked two Russian air bases on Monday and multiple Ukrainian cities sustained damage from missiles, The Wall Street Journal reported.
In Ukraine, people flooded into bomb shelters, including shelters set up in the underground transit system, as Russia rained missiles down into the country.
Ronn Blitzer of Fox News Digital contributed reporting.
On the breadline: inflation overwhelms Europe’s food banks
With no job and speaking little of the language, Olena Vinykova has relied on her local food bank to cope with the “very hard” situation she found herself in since fleeing Ukraine for Germany seven months ago. If she had arrived any later, her situation could have been even worse.
Surging food and fuel prices mean millions more people in Germany are struggling to make ends meet, forcing many food banks to shut their doors to thousands of new applicants. That includes the one used by Vinykova in Friedberg, about 15 miles north of Frankfurt.
The former nurse, who left her husband and grown-up children in Bakhmut, now on the front line of Ukraine’s war with Russia, asked the Financial Times to “say thank you” to the volunteers for their “amazing” work.
Across Europe food bank use is soaring as the highest inflation for a generation hits the region’s poorest, who spend a greater proportion of their income on energy and food, the hardest.
Charities from Spain to Latvia report 20 to 30 per cent higher demand than last year and expect a further increase this winter. In Bulgaria, one of the poorest countries in the EU, there was a three-quarters jump between September and October in people using the national food bank, according to the country’s food bank director Tzanka Milanova. “Inflation is gnawing away at people’s finances,” said Milanova. “More people end up below the poverty line.” Government bodies have exhausted their budgets for food aid, forcing Bulgarian charities to turn to food banks.
Over a third of Germany’s 962 food banks — called Tafel — have stopped taking new applicants beyond the 2mn they already help. This is the first time many have taken such a drastic step, after which demand rose more than 50 per cent this year for access to the fruit, vegetables, bread and other essentials they collect from shops and donors.
“We could double the number of customers if we took everyone who asked,” said Peter Radl, chair of the Friedberg food bank, which provides a basket of supplies every two weeks to 700 families, of which about 130 come from Ukraine. “But space is limited, we have a total of 120 baskets, and there is only so much our volunteers can do,” he added.
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“It is surprising for a rich country like Germany to have so many people who cannot afford to feed themselves properly,” said Katja Bernhard, a board member of the food bank association for the Hesse region.
Yet soaring energy prices, triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, have pushed over a quarter of the German population into “fuel poverty” — defined as spending more than 10 per cent of income on energy — up from 14.5 per cent last year, according to the country’s council of economic experts.
More than a fifth of the EU population was already unable to heat their home sufficiently last year, before the latest price surge, according to the latest data from Eurostat, the EU statistics agency.
In November, eurozone price growth slowed for the first time in 17 months, dipping from 10.6 per cent to 10 per cent. But this was little consolation for people struggling to make ends meet, especially when average wages have risen only 4 per cent in the past year.
Energy prices across the single currency area are still almost 35 per cent higher than a year ago, while food, alcohol and tobacco cost more than 13 per cent extra, according to Eurostat.
The price of some essentials has risen even faster. In the wider EU, milk prices have soared 43 per cent in the past year, while pork costs 55 per cent more and Japonica rice 68 per cent more.
In central and eastern Europe, the cost of staples has increased even more sharply. In Hungary, bread prices have risen by 80 per cent over the past year. There, the national food bank works via a network of charitable groups, which has expanded by almost a quarter to 530 this year. Its spokesman András Nagygyörgy estimates it helps 221,000 people, adding: “Since the start of the inflationary spiral, we have been witnessing an inflow of organizations.”
Giovanni Bruno, president of the Italian food bank foundation, estimated an additional 85,000 people had sought their help this year. “Many people who ask for food are now young, even students trying to save money to pay electricity or heating bills,” he said.
Inflation has also led to a fall in the amount of