Pepsi Products Get a Sweet Makeover

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Pepsi Products Get a Sweet Makeover with Real Sugar
Pepsi announces a trio of additions to their product lines
by Kat Kinsman

Members of the original Pepsi Generation are about to get a sweet trip down memory lane. The company announced on Thursday that three new "retro" sodas will be hitting beverage aisles beginning in March and April.

Frank Cooper, a VP for Pepsi-Cola North America Beverages announced via the company's website, "Pepsi Natural and the Throwback duo (Pepsi and Mountain Dew) give consumers the opportunity to refresh how they experience soft drinks."

The big difference? Packaging and sweetener. Pepsi Natural, touted as a "premium" cola, replaces the brand's standard sweetener -- high fructose corn syrup -- with natural cane and beet sugar, shaving four grams of sugar per 12-ounce serving. Pepsi's website also touted lightly sparkling water, natural caramel, kola nut extract, natural apple extract and a light, amber color as hallmarks of its revamped formula.

Two more brand extensions, Pepsi Throwback and Mountain Dew Throwback, will be available for a limited time only. These soft drinks are also sugar-sweetened and packaged with an old school design, inspired by the '60s and '70s. Both will be nationally available beginning April 20th, for a limited run of eight weeks.

High fructose corn syrup has come under fire from opponents who claim that the substance -- chemically identical to sugar -- promotes obesity, though no scientific causality has been found. HFCS became popular with manufacturers in the 1980s as an alternative to cane sugar, which generally costs twice as much. Sugar sweetened Pepsi products, indicated by a white cap, are available in the United States during Passover, as the consumption of corn is forbidden under Kosher law during that time period.