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PepsiCo—which faced a consumer backlash after it pulled aspartame from Diet Pepsi in 2015—is making a full reversal and will once again use the controversial sweetner in the soda's mainstream variety. The brand yanked aspartame in mid-2015, replacing it with with sucralose and acesulfame potassium, known as Ace-K. But the move backfired as loyalists clamored for the original formula. So in 2016, the brand brought back the aspartame version—but only in limited quantities marketed as "classic sweetener blend." It kept the aspartame-free version as its mainstream variety. But now Diet Pepsi is making the aspartame version its main variety again...

In response to falling sales of diet soda, last year PepsiCo changed the sweetener in its main calorie-free beverage, Diet Pepsi. Noting the health concerns that some customers have about the original sweetener in Diet Pepsi, aspartame, the company switched to a different sweetener last year to try to reverse a sales decline. Now sales are declining even faster. Customers had time to adjust to the idea of Diet Pepsi without aspartame, since rumors about sweetener tests have appeared in these very pages since 2012. The version of the beverage sweetened with a blend of sucralose (Splenda) and acesulfame potassium...