Diet soda in resturaunts

Factual Questions
1

I’m not sure if this has a factual answer or not, but I’m going to ask anyway.

I’m a diabetic, meaning that when I got with my family to eat out at almost anyplace on the map in the US, I’m stuck with three choices to drink: Water, diet Coke/Pepsi or iced tea.

Is there a reason why I can never find other diet sodas, like Diet Sprite/7-Up, Diet Dr. Pepper, etc? It drives me up the wall that I have so little choice when I go out, even in places that have full bars, they never have fountain diet sodas other than Diet Coke or (ick) Diet Pepsi. Seems that with the rise of diabetes in the US, you’d start to see more choices that are diabetic freindly.

BTW, The Only exception to this that I have ever found is A&W, which serves their diet root beer.

2

I would guess it’s an economic decision. Not as many people drink the diet versions, so if they stock every single one, they’ll end up with lots of extra… If they can satisfy you with one or two diet offerings, there’s no reason to offer more.

3

I don’t have the factual answer but there’s only so much space to put all those different kinds of soda. Just look at how many varieties of Coke they need to carry to meet demand. Then they add Sprite–who’s got room for Diet Sprite on top of all that?

Also, some chains may have exclusive deals with certain soda companies, which means if you can get Pepsi at Burger World, you won’t see Sprite.