Diet Pepsi ditches aspartame for sucralose

Apr 27, 2015

PepsiCo announced Friday it will no longer use aspartame as a sweetener in diet Pepsi due to customer concerns.

The company said new Diet Pepsi sweetened with sucralose and ace-K — or acesulfame-potassium — will hit the shelves in August.

"To Diet Pepsi consumers, removing aspartame is their No. 1 one concern," Seth Kaufman, senior vice president of Pepsi and flavors, told USA Today. "We're listening to consumers. It's what they want."

Kaufman said the move was more about consumer happiness than it was about health safety. There have been concerns in the past that aspartame may cause cancer, though some studies suggest it is safe for consumers.

"Decades of studies have shown that the sweeteners we use are safe," said PepsiCo spokeswoman Elisa Baker.

But some critics say Pepsi is just switching out one artificial sweetener for another. Diet Pepsi had already been using ace-K for some time and plans to continue using it in August.

"Diet Pepsi will still contain acesulfame-potassium (ace-K). Consumers should avoid that sweetener as well," said Michael Jacobson, director of Center for Science in the Public Interest, an advocacy group. "It is poorly tested, but the tests done by the manufacturer in the 1970s suggest that ace-K, too, might pose a cancer risk."

Aspartame will no longer be included in any variety of diet Pepsi.

Source: UPI.COM