Junk Food Blog has a link to this site which follows the trademark registration world, which tells us that Pepsi has registered the name “Pepsi RAW” for potential use as the name of a new formula that will return to using cane sugar syrup instead of high-fructose corn syrup.
Coke and Pepsi switched from cane sugar to HFCS in the mid-1980s, but with Coke in particular there has been much demand lately for a return to cane sugar as the sweetener. Some Coke bottlers use cane sugar for limited products such as the so-called “Kosher Coke” sold at Passover, and it’s widely known that Coke made in Mexico uses cane sugar, creating a lot of demand in markets near the Mexican border. Jones Soda and Boylan’s both make cane sugar-based colas that have been big sellers, so clearly there’s demand. There’s also a lot of criticism about the overuse of HFCS in all sorts of food products, but I see this as being more addressing the niche product demand rather than any health concerns.
