Coke bottles bitter US economic formula

Reuters ^ | 7/24/25 | Jennifer Saba

[DallasBiff]

NEW YORK, July 23 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Mexico is a frequent target of Donald Trump’s ire, but he prefers the Coke sold there. After holding conversations with the president, Coca-Cola (KO.N), opens new tab unveiled plans to roll out a version of its signature soda using cane sugar, as it is sold south of the border, instead of corn syrup. Even setting aside the idea of the Oval Office occupant influencing one of the world’s most successful recipes, it’s a classic case of industrial policy gone awry.

The $300 billion company has occasionally tinkered with the Coke formula over its 139-year lifespan, removing the cocaine, opens new tab that was originally included in 1903 and introducing a sweeter New Coke in 1985, which created a marketing disaster. After Coca-Cola and other carbonated beverage makers started using corn syrup for their U.S. products in the 1980s, the so-called Mexican Coke, bottled with purer sucrose, became a cultish find in supermarkets.

Making it more widely available bubbles up a multitude of complications. Homegrown sugar – as Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey vowed to use – is pricey because the Department of Agriculture tightly controls production and limits imports. There have been levies on it since 1789, and the U.S. government started providing farmers with financing in 1981 to help underpin prices. It costs about 50% more today for domestic sugar than what’s sold internationally, according to the Sweeteners Users Association trade group

[blackdog]

The domestic production of sugar is largely an empire of two families. Those families own congress. The corn syrup use came as a result of excess corn stockpiles and it was less volatile in cost swings. It's purely a commercial commodity and very friendly to process control in manufacturing finished products like jelly, soda, ice cream, candy, etc.

30% of corn stockpiles in the US largely sit and rot before demand catches up. Mountains of it just sitting outside in piles.

[FreedomPoster]

>>You know times are tough for the lib media when they start shilling for HFCS.

Which is really just shilling for Big Agriculture, ADM and the like.

[Mariner]

My guess is Coke would increase sales 25% if they sold a version with exactly half the sugar of its current product...and no stevia etc. to make it sweeter.

[Governor Dinwiddie]

#22: "Which is really just shilling for Big Agriculture, ADM and the like."

Bingo. Thanks for reminding me. Yes, it's deeper than HFCS. It's the same as the corn ethanol in our gasoline. Big Ag.

[Lurker]

All this means is that the sugar price supports should be done away with.

L

[Dr. Sivana]

30% of corn stockpiles in the US largely sit and rot before demand catches up.

Sounds like 30% (or more because of ethanol) farmers should find a different crop. Stevia grows fine in the midwest, and almost all of the U.S. available Stevia comes from Red China.

Also we could also go back to NON-high fructose corn syrup. When I saw HFCS listed as an ingredient in Karo, I realized this has gone too far.

[FreedomPoster]

A former neighbor was involved in the design of a HUGE beet processing plant up in that part of the world 25-30 years ago. To make sugar.

[blackdog]

Any corn production acreage that is excess can now grow sugar beets on that acreage. It just won’t be ADM or Cargill sweet.

[Williams]

I don’t think they can sell cyclamates here, but thank you for reminding me of that one!
The RFK Jr crowd is trying to clean up some of this big business dumping chemicals on the population.

[Georgia Girl 2]

I gave up soda pop 20 years ago.

[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

I’ve been on vacation in South Padre with my cousin, who has been confiscating the sodas, and I’m already noticing my pants are looser.

[cyclotic]

Only 40 lbs for me

[packrat35]

They will literally shill for anything President Trump is against. ANYTHING!

[packrat35]

Now get ethanol out of our gasolene...

[jjotto]

Iowa does not grow commodity quantities of potatoes or sugar beets. I don’t think Nebraska does either.

[blackdog]

I did all kinds of industrial controls and upgrades in agricultural processing and food manufacturing plants. I really hated corn syrup. It's very hard to pump it through miles of pipes in food plants. Deli and sausage making giants use it by tank farm quantities. Hot dogs, ham, turkey, etc....I was always surprised at that.

The properties of corn syrups shift wildly based on temperatures, viscosity issues making flow control and metering a real pain in the butt. It can be thick as gorilla glue at one area and thin as water in a hot area, then right back to glue after passing thru a refrigerated area.

That said, sugar is like moving sand. In one week all your 90 degree bend elbows in the pipes are completely cut through by the grainy sugar particles. It is conveyed in pipes using Pnu-Con system. A real long series of pipes that open and close valves to push slugs thru like breathing in, closing off, then breathing out.

[blackdog]

https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/sugarbeet-production-by-state

[takebackaustin]

This is corn syrup, not cane or beet sugar. It has higher fructose. Fructose is considered unhealthy by MAHA. One theory is that is less satiating (satisfying).

[FreedomPoster]

Yeah, I could see all of that being a challenge from a pumping / material handling perspective. Then you get into grains and the possibility of dust explosions, etc.

[takebackaustin]

Sorry, never mind, I see you were responding to the OP asking about cane sugar availibility, not the article.