According to reports in the US media, Diet Pepsi sales fell by 6.6% in September as customers complained that a change in the recipe had ruined the taste.
In August, PepsiCo announced that it had reformulated Diet Pepsi, replacing aspartame with sucralose. The new cans were marked with the words “now aspartame free” above the Pepsi circle logo. The change followed reports in the United States which suggested that some industry executives blamed falling sales of traditional diet sodas on unfounded concerns consumers had about aspartame. Diet Pepsi’s sales were reported as falling 5.2% last year.
Customers have now complained that replacing the controversial sweetener aspartame has ruined the taste of the drink. While the company says the new sweetener was approved by three quarters of customers in tests, Pepsi purists have complained that the new soda is too sugary and is putting them off.
Negative remarks on social media networks have so far outweighed positive ones by 6-1 – and while we expect consumers to use social media platforms to complain, the weight of negative opinion seems higher than normal.
It is too early to guess how PepsiCo will respond.
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