President Donald Trump said Wednesday that Coca-Cola has agreed to use real cane sugar in its flagship soft drink in the U.S. at his suggestion.
Coca-Cola uses corn syrup in its American products, but Trump’s Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr has voiced concern about the ingredient’s health impacts.
Any switch from high-fructose corn syrup in Coke sold in the United States would put Coca-Cola more in line with its practice in other countries, including Mexico and Australia. But it would not affect Trump’s drink of choice, Diet Coke, which uses aspartame as a calorie-free beverage, reports AP.
Trump wrote on his social media, “I’d like to thank all of those in authority at Coca-Cola. This will be a very good move by them — You’ll see. It’s just better!”
Without explicitly confirming the recipe tweak, a Coca-Cola spokesperson said they “appreciate President Trump’s enthusiasm” and “more details on new innovative offerings within our Coca-Cola product range will be shared soon”.
In April, Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey told investors that “we continue to make progress on sugar reduction in our beverages”. He said the Atlanta-based company has “done this by changing recipes as well as by using our global marketing resources and distribution network to boost awareness of and interest in our ever-expanding portfolio.”
But any decision to use cane sugar instead might leave a bitter aftertaste for American corn farmers, says BBC.
Corn Refiners Association President and CEO John Bode said in a statement, “Replacing high fructose corn syrup with cane sugar would cost thousands of American food manufacturing jobs, depress farm income, and boost imports of foreign sugar, all with no nutritional benefit.”
Despite his fondness for Diet Coke, Trump’s relationship with the company has not always been sweet. In a series of posts in 2012, Trump suggested diet soda might be connected to weight gain before eventually writing, “The Coca Cola company is not happy with me — that’s okay, I’ll still keep drinking that garbage.”
A bottle of Diet Coke could be seen sitting next to his chair years later, at a G20 summit in 2017, with the the New York Times additionally reporting in 2018 that he was drinking a dozen Diet Cokes daily.