Pepsi Going Throwback, Taps Wyoming Sugar

[MrTitleist]

From this morning's Missoulian:

Billings - Sugar, jilted a quarter century ago by food companies charmed by less expensive high fructose corn syrup, is making a comeback as wholesome and more natural.

Products including soda pop and pancake syrup are again using sugar to attract consumers suspicious of high fructose corn syrup and artificial sweeteners.

The latest products to drop corn sweetener for granulated sugar are special editions of Pepsi and Mountain Dew that arrived on local grocery shelves in mid April. The beverage rollout marked the first time since 1984 that regionally produced sugar has sweetened a major brand soft drink.
“I’m of the age that I remember when Pepsi used to taste that way,” said Cal Jones, president of Wyoming Sugar in Worland. “It’s got a distinct taste and to me it’s good. It seems smoother and has a little more pizzazz. It just doesn’t seem as heavy.”

Pepsi tapped Wyoming Sugar as its regional sweetener provider for the special edition, sugar-only Pepsi Throwback, because the company’s local bottling plant, Admiral Beverage, is in Worland, Wyo. Jones said the sweetener made from sugar beets is delivered in crystal form to the Admiral plant, where it’s liquefied by the bottler. In Billings, cans of Pepsi Throwback come from Worland. The bottles come from Harrington’s in Butte. The promotional product will be around for about six more weeks.

Sugar was the sweetener of choice for U.S. soft drinks and prepared foods until the 1980s when import prices were driven up by tariffs and sugar quotas. High fructose corn syrup, a cheaper homegrown alternative, quickly usurped the processed food market in United States, while outside the country where U.S. tariffs weren’t a problem sugar persisted.

But U.S. consumers have become increasingly suspicious of high fructose corn syrup, making sugar attractive once again. The latter product is regarded by consumers as more natural.

“In 2008 we asked people how much of an effort they were making to avoid certain ingredients and a little over a third of adults said they’re making a strong effort to cut down or avoid high fructose corn syrup,” said Karen Bundy, Multi-sponsor Surveys. The New Jersey-based company is the corporate parent of Gallup Poll.

Earlier this month, the global market research group Mintel International reported that 16 percent of surveyed American consumers “worry about the health risks of high fructose corn syrup.” A similar number, 15 percent, said they now drink fewer artificially sweetened beverages “because of risks.” The market sweet spot for sugar producers is between those concerns, where sugar is considered more natural, although not consequence-free.

Sugar is less processed than high-fructose corn syrup, which is created through multiple chemical reactions.

“Sugar is natural, and people are going back to it because it has been considered safe,” said Mike Hofer of the Western Sugar Cooperative, which produces beet sugar in Billings. “You know, sometimes when you deal with artificial sweeteners you don’t know what you’re dealing with.”

Honey was the public’s gold standard for natural sweeteners, Bundy said. Sugar, produced from cane or sugar beets, was regarded less natural than honey, but higher than corn syrup, which as a sweetener was considered only somewhat more natural than artificial sweetener.

Among states, Montana typically ranks in the top 10 for honey production. The move to natural sweetener has benefited honey, as well. ConAgra Healthy Choice All Natural Frozen snacks are made from either honey or sugar.

Natural food trends in general are strong in the United States, said Liz Sloan, president of San Diego-based Sloan Trends, which tracks consumer behavior. Honey is big winner in the natural market with sales increasing 9.8 percent despite the bad economy, Sloan said. Restaurants are also gravitating to more natural sugars like Demerara sugar, which is a large-grained pale, golden cane sugar.

At home, parents of young children are a driving force for natural sweeteners, and high-fructose corn syrup lately has taken some lumps.

In March, first lady Michelle Obama said she wouldn’t feed products containing high fructose corn syrup to her daughters. Last week, the Journal of Clinical Investigation reported that consuming drinks sweetened with fructose could raise blood levels of LDL, or bad cholesterol, and triglycerides in overweight people. Sucrose did not raise the risk.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture quickly responded to the report by assuring consumers that health effects of high-fructose corn syrup and sugar were similar when it came to obesity. The Journal of Clinical Investigation report addressed the harmful traits of pure fructose, which high-fructose corn syrup isn’t.

[Wyokie]

That'll help Wyoming's economy plus I'm addicted to Pepsi!!!

[MrTitleist]

It'll certainly help the economies in the Big Horn Basin, from Powell/Lovell to Worland, but probably not much in other areas of the state.

[Wyokie]

It'll certainly help the economies in the Big Horn Basin, from Powell/Lovell to Worland, but probably not much in other areas of the state.

True plus there's a Pepsi bottling plant in Worland too.