Diet Pepsi Sales Plunge After Change In The Recipe

Yahoo ^ | 10/22/15 | Rob Waugh

[qam1]

Sales of diet Pepsi have plunged after the soft drink company behind it changed the recipe.

In a case with echoes of Coke’s disastrous introduction of ‘New Coke’, Pepsi has faced a huge backlash after replacing the sweetener in the drink. Pepsi chose to remove the controversial sweetener aspartame - linked to cancer in some studies - with sucralose.

But customers aren’t happy. David Zimdars of Michigan said, ‘It has a nasty aftertaste, and it’s sickly sweet. You have to wash it out with water.'

Pepsi’s choice of sucralose - known by the brand name Splenda - has been blasted online, with many consumers describing it as, ‘Yukky.’

In the month after the new recipe was introduced, sales of Pepsico’s diet drinks dropped 6.6%.

[oldtech]

I totally agree. I won’t drink diet drinks mostly because of the taste & the questionable sweeteners,but the taste is hideous IMHO.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

Diet sodas - and all sodas are bad for health anyway...

[minnesota_bound]

#14 40 cans a week? !
When you walk do you make sloshing sounds? : )

I use to drink a 12 pack or more of coke a week and had to quit cold after getting close to being type 2 diabetic. It took me 30+ years to get there mind you. The diet drinks I tried are not really good because of the aspartame etc. Diet Sunkist or Diet Crush. I can handle 1 to 2 bottles in a day but I drink manly lots of water and slosh around to the bathroom several times a day : )

[annieokie]

I was wondering when this would show up. I agree, since I learned what they do, NO MORE PEPSI for me.

[PAR35]

There was a story yesterday about diet Coke sales dropping because they DIDN’T change to the new sweetener.

Spin upon spin, but perhaps the real story is that folks are tired of ‘diet’ and ‘healthy’ after Michelle’s campaign.

[xzins]

I stopped buying all soft drinks about 2 months ago when a 12 pack got to the ridiculous price of $4.50 and higher. The prices jumped when Obama’s gas prices soared and the companies claimed ‘fuel’ required the price hike. Well, fuel prices dropped and what happened? Soaring prices of something that isn’t a necessity at all, and is a bit of a pain to carry around.

So, we got a water filter, some flavoring, and I found a combo of lime and peach that I like, so I’m paying pennies. Probably getting a lot less sodium, too.

[GreyFriar]

I didn’t know Vernor’s was made any more.

[exDemMom]

I like Splenda.

Nutrasweet (Equal) is an unstable compound that breaks down with heat and has a fairly limited shelf life when in solution. Items that are sweetened with Equal that have sat around for a few months do not taste sweet at all, but only taste like the breakdown products.

I wonder if the taste those diet Pepsi drinkers miss is actually the flavor of the Nutrasweet breakdown products. Some of the comments quoted above of people who do not like the new Splenda-sweetened diet Pepsi make me think that is the case.

I don’t know; I do not like soda in general, and find Pepsi a particularly bad example of soda.

[dp0622]

it sounds like the ocean tide when i walk.

lost 110 pounds past year, was 430!!!! that’s close to 500.

home a number of years from head injury and got depressed and ballooned.

finally fought back but never cut back on my diet sodas. So i lost weight and have at least another 100 to go but i’ll die of cancer from aspartame instead :) great.

Also, i’m not eating healthy, just less garbage. Don’t really know if losing weight that way really helps?

but screw it, nobody lives forever and i like my bad food and diet sodas!!!

[elcid1970]

Do the Chinese characters for “Co-ca-Co-la” still mean “Bite the wax tadpole”?

;^)

[Vinnie]

I don’t drink sodas often, usually diet when I do.
I make it a point to never drink aspartame.
Ever drink one that has been hot, as in sitting it the sun? Aspartame loses its sweet taste.

[roamer_1]

Bleah. Sweet tea costs pennies per gallon, and tastes WAY better... and doesn’t go flat.

[niteowl77]

I drink the sugar cane Dr Peppers.

That was available locally for a while but seems to have disappeared- the stuff tasted like it "used to" and came in groovy retro-style cans. I need to scout a bit further afield.

Mr. niteowl77

[minnesota_bound]

Try the caveman diet. It has it's plus and minus.

[Rastus]

I’m lucky enough to live in Texas where the old agreements are still in place and Temple Bottling is able to produce sugar Dr Peppers. Dublin used to do it, but they insisted on using the name Dublin Dr Pepper and corporate put their foot down. Dublin now makes a drink called Black Cherry that is just a renamed Dublin Dr Pepper. I’ve only seem them in single bottles, though, so it gets expensive.

I buy six packs of 8oz. bottles and put them in the freezer until they are one step from freezing up. It’s so good, but I probably should cut back. I sometimes finish off a six pack in a day. I justify it by the fact they they are half the amount of a 16oz. can of Coke. Three cans a day doesn’t sound that bad.

[Grams A]

Good for you - collector’s items. Only thing we still have is an original Aunt Jemimah syrup bottle. My kids loved that syrup. And, of course, I have all my mom’s Tupperwear containers which I still use.

It’s funny that Coke came in “green” glass bottles, we paid a deposit and always returned them. Best kind of recycling and we were way ahead of our time but didn’t refer to it in those terms. We also used cloth diapers for our babies. Interesting that the generation following us decided to abandon all of this and go to plastic everything and now they don’t know what to do about all the plastic they had to have. Just dumb, dumb!

[UCANSEE2]

I’ve found that automotive anti-freeze tastes really good.

Plus, it’s used in ice cream, so why not in a carbonated beverage.

[Monty22002]

Most are horrendous. Diet Dr Pepper though is IMO the closest to the real thing of them all and fairly edible.

[Trailerpark Badass]

Unless you're drinking gallons of the stuff, the vast majority of people would not be harmed at all by having non-diet soda.

And I'm sorry, but drinking gallons of diet soda can't be good for you.

[UCANSEE2]

Educate yourself. That’s not true.

That's right. What Coke and Pepsi syrup is made from is the residual gunk left in the bottom of oil tankers.

: )

If you want to clean your toilet bowl , pour a 2-liter bottle of Coke in it and let it sit.