After slump, Diet Pepsi dumps aspartame

ATLANTA — PepsiCo will start selling Diet Pepsi without aspartame later this year, one of the biggest changes to the beverage in decades, after a consumer backlash against the artificial sweetener crushed sales.

The company will replace aspartame with a blend of sucralose and acesulfame potassium in Diet Pepsi, Caffeine Free Diet Pepsi and Wild Cherry Diet Pepsi sold in the U.S. beginning in August. The move follows a 5.2 percent decline in Diet Pepsi’s sales volume last year, according to Beverage-Digest. Sales of Coca-Cola’s Diet Coke, which also uses aspartame, dropped 6.6 percent.

PepsiCo is getting the jump on Diet Coke, the country’s No. 1 sugar-free soda, in removing the controversial sweetener. Consumers have been backing away from both brands in recent years, fearful that the lab-created sweetener may cause cancer. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has said there’s no proof of a health risk from aspartame.“Decades of studies have shown that aspartame is safe, but the reality is that consumer demand in the U.S. has been evolving,” said Seth Kaufman, senior vice president of Pepsi and the company’s flavors drinks in North America. “The U.S. diet cola consumer has been asking and asking and asking for an aspartame-free great diet cola."

Even so, Coca-Cola isn’t budging.  <Read More>

Coca Cola is looking to see a further reduction in their sales before making the switch.  This switch is problematic because the new substance is sucralose, not something safer like Stevia.  See this video by Dr. Mercola about Splenda (sucrolose) - ED: