Soft drinks were first commercialized in Canada as medicinal elixirs or tonic in the early 19th century when small carbonated bottling operations were established. The industry has since grown to sell almost three billion units of flavored soft drinks per year. Dollar sales of flavored soft drinks reached approximately 1.4 billion Canadian dollars, making them a favorite cold drink option among consumers. Pepsi and Coca Cola are among some of the most popular soft drinks in Canada and some of the main Canadian brands include: Canada Dry, Crush, Big 8, and Clearly Canadian.
However, due to recently prevalent dietary concerns regarding obesity and sugar intake, the appeal of sugary soft drinks has depleted. The volume of soft drinks available for consumption per person in Canada dropped from 82.93 liters in 2010 to 52.78 liters in 2020. The volume of soft drinks imported into Canada in 2020 amounted to around 321 kiloliters and for that same year, the volume exported from Canada stood at approximately 190 kiloliters.
