The can looks the way it does because of a specific brief. Pearlfisher redesigned the brand in 2017 around Brazilian street art, aiming it at a younger audience, and turned the letter O in the logo into a sun to carry the slogan "Celebrate the Sunny". The result is a white body carrying bright, hand-drawn tropical graphics in orange, yellow, green and pink, which is an unusual choice in a fruit carbonate aisle where almost everything defaults to a saturated colour block. The white does the opposite job, letting the artwork sit forward and making the can read as illustrated rather than branded. Anything with the sun in the logo is 2017 or later.

Hall and Woodhouse kept the brand for roughly four decades, and then handed sales, marketing and distribution to Boost Drinks in 2021, then sold Rio Tropical Limited outright to AG Barr in October 2023 for £12.3 million. That puts it in the same portfolio as Tizer and IRN-BRU, both also made by the Cumbernauld company.

The recipe was reformulated to cut sugar by more than half, dropping from over 10 grams per 100ml to under 4.5 grams, which moved it below the threshold for the United Kingdom's soft drinks industry levy. The lost sweetness was replaced partly with sweeteners and partly by putting more fruit in.

Inside is a lightly sparkling blend that AG Barr states as 8% real fruit and juice, drawing on mango, orange, passion fruit, apricot and guava, with citric acid, natural flavourings and carotenes for colour. Retailer listings vary on the exact percentages, which reflects the reformulation rather than any disagreement about what is in it.