Panera Bread’s health crusade continues apace this week: After launching a new “clean” beverage line and posting calorie and added sugars information for its drinks in its stores, Panera will be rolling out new cups that list nutritional information for every beverage it sells. [More]
sugar
We Have Sugar To Thank For The American Tobacco Industry
By 12.9.16
If you’ve ever tried to give up eating sugar, you know that the sweet stuff has a strong hold on our brains. What you may not realize, though, is that sugar’s addictive and delicious power also is part of another common addiction that we’ve perfected and exported: tobacco. [More]
Nestlé Creates A New Sugar: Use Less, Get The Same Taste
By 12.2.16
For years, food and beverage companies like Pepsi Co. have tweaked their use of sugar and sweetener substitutes to find just the right mixture that aligns with consumers’ tastes and perception of a healthy lifestyle. Instead of fiddling around with different kinds of sweeteners like aspartame or Splenda, Nestlé hit the laboratory to create its own version of the crystallized ingredient. [More]
Splenda Goes To War With Dunkin’ Donuts Over Lookalike Sweetener
By 11.10.16
You won’t find little, pale-yellow packets of Splenda at Dunkin’ Donuts, but you will find little pale-yellow packets of a knockoff version of the sweetener. Heartland Consumer Products, the company behind Splenda, is taking Dunkin’ to court, claiming the coffee-and-donut chain is misleading consumers into thinking they are getting the real Splenda when it’s just a knockoff. [More]
Chicago Might Be Next To Try Tax On Sodas & Sugary Drinks
By 10.13.16
Days after the Whole Health Organization announced it supported taxes on sugary drinks in order to curb obesity, the largest county in Illinois is weighing that option — following in the footsteps of Berkeley, CA, and Philadelphia, where a similar tax is now subject to a beverage industry legal battle. [More]
Lawsuit: PepsiCo’s Naked Juice Drinks Mislead Shoppers About Ingredients, Sugar Content
By 10.4.16
Should a drink called “Kale Blazer” have kale as its primary ingredient? When something says “no sugar added” on the label, do you think that means the beverage is low in sugar? These and many other questions may eventually possibly be answered by a new lawsuit filed against PepsiCo. [More]
Dannon Looking To Cut Sugar In Yogurt
By 7.15.16
Earlier this year the Department of Agriculture and Department of Health and Human Services released the eighth edition of Dietary Guidelines that included the suggestion that Americans limit their consumption of added sugar to no more than 10% of one’s dietary calories. In response, French Yogurt giant Dannone is looking at ways to reduce the amount of sweet stuff in its products. [More]
We May Be Facing A Future Without M&M McFlurries
By 6.16.16
If you’re the kind of person who likes to add extra sugar to your dose of sugar, your sweet tooth may soon have to accept a new reality, one where an ice cream treat isn’t dotted with brightly colored candy: Mars, the company behind the M&Ms in your McFlurry, the Snickers in your Burger King dessert pie, may be considering ending those kinds of partnerships with fast food chains. [More]
Court Slams Brakes On San Francisco’s Mandatory Warnings On Soda Ads
By 6.8.16
Only a few weeks ago, a federal court refused to halt a new San Francisco ordinance requiring soda companies to place warnings on all their ads in the city, but today that same court decided to grant a temporary injunction preventing the rule from kicking in while the beverage industry appeals its case. [More]
FDA: ‘Evaporated Cane Juice’ Is Just Sugar, Deal With It
By 5.26.16
What’s “evaporated cane juice”? It’s a sweetener produced from the liquid that comes out of sugar cane when you cut or shred it. However, the Food and Drug Administration notes that it’s also a term that food producers use in ingredients list to avoid using the word “sugar.” The FDA has had enough of this, and issued guidance telling food marketers that they need to just call ECJ what it is: sugar. [More]
Sierra Mist Performs Another Sweetener Switcharoo, Angers Fans Again
By 5.16.16
A sweetener switcharoo happens when a soft drink company swaps out the sweetener that customers are used to and substitutes something else, usually a small amount of a non-caloric sweetener. We’ve previously shared customer outrage when this happened to Seagram’s ginger ale and Sierra Mist, when companies sneaked in small amounts of sucralose (Splenda) and of stevia respectively. Now Sierra Mist maker PepsiCo has changed things up again, rebranding Sierra Mist as Mist TWST, and switching the sweetener out for high fructose corn syrup. [More]
Soda Makers Advertise New And Exciting Ingredient: Sugar
By 3.30.16
Late last year, Pepsi prepared to introduce a new beverage, the old-timey and upscale 1893, or as its trademark application called it, “1893 From the Makers of Pepsi-Cola.” It’s just one of many products taking advantage of a strange trend in soft drinks right now: making products with real sugar is a selling point, something that the industry might not have expected just a few years ago. [More]
Coke Says It Paid $132.5M To Fund Scientific Research Over A Five-Year Period
By 3.24.16
After facing backlash and fallout from its funding of the now-defunct Global Energy Balance Network — an anti-obesity organization with a decidedly pro-soda bent — Coca-Cola began disclosing all of its spending in the U.S. on scientific research and health partnerships. Now, nearly six months after first disclosing it had spent $118.5 million in a five-year period, the company has come back with an updated figure of $132.8 million. [More]
Coca-Cola, Pepsi Once Again Fund Study Claiming Diet Soda Is Better For You Than Water
By 1.18.16
Back in 2014, the soft drink industry funded a study that, coincidentally, concluded that diet soda is better for weight loss than water. These same companies are at it again, not only providing the backing for another study extolling the virtues of diet drinks, but also — according to new reports — directly paying money to the researchers involved. [More]
Big Corn & Big Sugar Confidentially Settle 4-Year-Old False Advertising Lawsuit
By 11.20.15
A long-delayed four-year legal battle between Big Corn and Big Sugar has finally come to an end — not with a jury verdict, or with a judge throwing the case out, but with a confidential settlement that leaves a sour taste in everyone’s mouth. [More]
Diet Pepsi Sweetened With Aspartame May Be Sold Online
By 7.9.15
Earlier this year, PepsiCo announced that Diet Pepsi, long sweetened with aspartame (some of us still call it by the brand name NutraSweet), would be switching over to sucralose (which you’ll find in Splenda). But just in case people still crave that distinctive aspartame taste, Pepsi’s CEO says the company will find a way to make it available. [More]
![[ silent (e) ]](../../consumermediallc.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/pepsistubborn.jpg?w=300&h=225&crop=1)
Pepsi Considering A Line Of “Craft” Fountain Sodas Made With Sugar
By 6.4.15
In the race to create sweet, carbonated beverages people actually want to drink, PepsiCo is looking into peddling a line of “craft” fountain sodas made with sugar, instead of the high fructose corn syrup used to sweeten many other beverages you might find on tap. [More]
Company Behind M&M’s, Snickers Endorses “Added Sugars” Label For Foods
By 5.8.15
Of all the companies to advocate for alerting consumers to added sugars, the country’s most famous candy maker would be probably be among the least likely. But yesterday, Mars Inc. — the company behind M&M’s, Snickers, Milky Way, and Twix — gave its corporate stamp of approval to the idea of limiting the use of added sugars and labeling those products that contain extra sugar. [More]
