PepsiCo, Inc. PEP is reportedly bringing back its aspartame sweetened Diet Pepsi to U.S. shelves, less than a year after launching an aspartame-free version of the soft drink.
Last August, the food and beverage giant had launched Diet Pepsi sweetened with sucralose due to consumer safety concerns.
Beverage giants like Pepsi, The Coca-Cola Company KO and Dr Pepper Snapple, Group, Inc. DPS have been seeing declining sales of their calorie laden soft drinks due to growing health and wellness consciousness among consumers and the related obesity concerns. Consumers are seeking beverage alternatives to sodas – seemingly healthier drinks like juices and flavored waters. In fact, the diet drinks are also under pressure due to increasing consumer concern regarding the use of artificial sweeteners.
The slide in the regular soft drinks market started quite a few years back while the diet versions have begun to struggle of late with consumers becoming increasingly aware of artificial sweeteners, like aspartame.
Given the circumstances, beverage companies shifted to making naturally sweetened low-calorie drinks. Similar to Pepsi’s aspartame-free Diet Pepsi, Coca-Cola launched a reduced-calorie, naturally sweetened cola, Coca-Cola Life.
However, the declining sales of Diet Pepsi and increasing demand from fans of the aspartame version – via social media – pushed the company to re-introduce the Diet Pepsi with aspartame in September. Pepsi said both the aspartame and sucralose version of Diet Pepsi will be available in U.S. stores. While the sucralose version cans will be in silver, the Diet Pepsi with aspartame will come in light blue packaging.
Pepsi also reportedly said that it will rebrand Pepsi Max – a zero-calorie drink sweetened with aspartame – as Pepsi Zero Sugar in the U.S.
Pepsi carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). Another stock worth considering in the beverage industry is Primo Water Corporation PRMW, which sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).
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