About eight years ago, in response to customer concerns about possible health risks associated with the artificial sweetener aspartame, PepsiCo decided to remove the ingredient from its popular diet soda.
Sales fell. A year later, aspartame returned to Diet Pepsi.
Today, the top three ingredients listed in the small print on the back of Diet Pepsi cans and bottles — and its competitor Diet Coke — are water, caramel color and aspartame.
A trip to the grocery store reveals the ingredient on the labels of not only diet sodas but also diet teas, sugar-free gums, sugar-free energy drinks, and mixed diet lemonade drinks. By some estimates, thousands of products contain aspartame.
The use of aspartame, commonly known by the brand name Equal, in food and beverage products has long been scrutinized. The latest iteration came on Thursday, when a World Health Organization agency declared that aspartame may cause cancer and urged people who drink large numbers of aspartame-containing beverages to switch to water or other non-aspartame beverages. sweetness.
But even with the emergence of many new artificial sweeteners, as well as plant- and fruit-based ones, Big Food cannot stop aspartame, and analysts do not expect it at this time. That’s because the ingredient is one of the cheapest sugar alternatives to use, it works especially well in drinks and mixes, and people love its taste.
There was also pushback about the urgency of the WHO announcement. In a swift rebuke, the US Food and Drug Administration said it disagreed with the findings, reiterating its stance that aspartame is safe. And a second WHO committee said a 150-pound person would have to drink more than a dozen cans of Diet Coke a day to exceed the safe threshold for the sweetener.
“Big beverage companies have been doing contingency planning for months, experimenting with different sweeteners, with the goal of having the taste and quality of diet drinks be consistent as long as can with existing products,” said Garrett Nelson, who covers the beverage industry. in CFRA Research. But they are unlikely to change the recipe unless they see a significant drop in consumer demand based on the WHO report, he said.
“If consumers really stop buying Diet Coke because of this report, if sales start to suffer, it may be time to go to Plan B,” Mr. Nelson said.
Coca-Cola referred questions to the American Beverage Association, the lobbying arm for the industry. “Aspartame is safe,” Kevin Keane, the organization’s interim president, said in a statement.
PepsiCo did not respond to requests for comment, but in an interview with Bloomberg Markets that aired Thursday, Hugh F. Johnston, PepsiCo’s chief financial officer, said he did not expect a major consumer backlash.
“I believe that, in fact, this will not be a significant issue to consumers simply based on the overwhelming evidence suggesting that aspartame is safe,” Mr. Johnston said.
The WHO agency’s assessment adds to consumer confusion about aspartame, but it’s also the latest in a recent spate of research focusing on potential risks and questioning the real benefits of artificial sweeteners. Just a few weeks ago, the WHO advised against using artificial sweeteners for weight control, saying a review of studies does not show a long-term benefit in reducing body fat in children or adults. The review also suggested that sweeteners are tied to an increased risk of Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
This year, researchers at North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill released a study that found a chemical formed after another sweetener, sucralose, is digested, damages DNA and may contribute to health problems.
For years, food and beverage companies and regulators have generally criticized research that raises questions about artificial sweeteners, widely arguing that the studies are flawed or inconclusive. or that the health risks are minimal.
“A large body of scientific evidence shows that low- and no-calorie sweeteners provide effective and safe options to reduce sugar and calorie consumption,” said Robert Rankin, president of the Calorie Control Council. the lobbying association for manufacturers and suppliers of nearly two dozen alternative sweeteners, said in an emailed statement Thursday.
In fact, most food and beverage companies that use aspartame are reluctant to switch partly because aspartame is cheaper than other alternatives and it is 200 times sweeter than sugar, meaning a little goes a long way.
“One of the advantages of aspartame is that it’s been made for so long that the manufacturers have really fine-tuned the costs and processing it very well and they get a great product,” said Glenn Roy, an adjunct organic chemistry professor at Vassar College who has spent more than three decades working with food companies, including NutraSweet, General Foods and PepsiCo.
Furthermore, the FDA approved aspartame in 1974, giving companies decades of data and information on what aspartame can and cannot do in products. For example, it can enhance and extend certain fruit flavors, such as cherry and orange, making it a preferred sweetener for drinks and chewing gum. But when heated, aspartame loses its sweetness, making it less desirable for baked or cooked products.
Food and beverage companies are releasing new products with no or low sugar in response to consumer demand, but many are using newer sweeteners, or a blend of sweeteners. Every new product undergoes a litany of sensory and taste tests before it is released.
But for products that have been around for decades, like diet sodas, loyal customers are used to a particular taste, and changes in ingredients can turn them off, scientists warn.