The Corn Refiners Association (CFA) has applied to the federal government for permission to use the name on food and beverage labels.
The trade association – whose members include Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill, National Starch, Roquette America and Tate & Lyle Ingredients Americas – hopes a new name will ease confusion about the sweetener, which is used in soft drinks, bread, cereal and other products, including many non-alcoholic beverages.
As the CFA says on its website, ‘relabelling high fructose corn syrup as corn sugar clears up confusion and enables consumers to easily identify added sugars in the diet’.
Americans’ consumption of corn syrup has fallen to a 20-year low on consumer concerns that it’s more harmful or more likely to cause obesity than ordinary sugar, perceptions for which there is little scientific evidence.
However, some scientists have linked consumption of full-calorie soda — the vast majority of which is sweetened with high fructose corn syrup — to obesity.
The Food and Drug Administration could take two years to decide on the name, but that’s not stopping the industry from using the term now in advertising.
Supporting the name change initiative is a new online marketing campaign and on TV. Two new commercials try to alleviate shopper confusion, showing people who say they now understand that ‘whether it’s corn sugar or cane sugar, your body can’t tell the difference. Sugar is sugar’.
“The new name would help people understand the sweetener,” said Audrae Erickson, president of the Washington-based Corn Refiners Association. “It has been highly disparaged and highly misunderstood.”
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