Despite Trump's cane sugar activism, Canadian Coke drinkers should get used to high-fructose corn syrup

WASHINGTON, D.C. — “Coke is it” was a popular TV ad for the famed soda back in 1982, featuring teens singing Coca-Cola’s praises around a piano. It was around that same time when the company started using high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) instead of cane sugar in their main product — and would soon launch the flop known as “New Coke” — so a better catchphrase might have been, “Which Coke is it?”

Fast forward 43 years, and for U.S. and Canadian consumers of Coke, it’s primarily the fresh taste of HFCS that they’re enjoying, unless they’ve paid a premium for Mexican Coke, which is made with cane sugar. The labels in the U.S. clearly state HFCS as an ingredient, but laws in Canada allow bottles containing HFCS to be labelled with “Sugar (glucose-fructose),” implying that it’s real sugar. It’s not.

Thanks to a public push from President Donald Trump over the summer, Coca-Cola agreed to roll out a cane-sugar version of its hit product. “I have been speaking to @CocaCola about using REAL Cane Sugar in Coke in the United States, and they have agreed to do so,” Trump posted on social media. 

Cane sugar Coca-Cola has now begun rolling out, but in another snub to Canada, there are no plans to bring it north of the border. 

“This will be a very good move by them — You’ll see. It’s just better!” the president’s post said. 

For decades, Coca-Cola has skillfully used nostalgia as a marketing tool. Its campaigns have featured everything from hippies offering to “buy the world a Coke, and keep it company” to pop stars and even Santa. Some brand experts say that Coke with cane sugar is another way to tap into this ache for the past.

According to Eran Mizrahi, CEO and cofounder of Source86, a global food and beverage sourcing and private‑label partner, the move is driven by “two major consumer drivers: nostalgia and health.”

“People are looking more and more for products that feel authentic and simple, and in my opinion, classic soft drinks like this one satisfy exactly that,” he said.

Baruch Labunski, founder of Rank Secure, a brand reputation management firm, agreed.

It’s all about connecting “real sugar to memories of simpler products,” he said. “This emotional connection drives mainly millennials and gen-Z to purchase. They … want a ‘cleaner’ version of the product.”

Coke isn’t alone in leaning on heritage-style beverages to grow demand. Pepsi has also launched a cane sugar version of its cola and many brands are looking to integrate more natural sweeteners into their drinks. 

But all this is just a “perception of purity,” Labunski added. “Coca-Cola is more concerned with emotional needs than actually reformulating healthful products. [It] is demonstrating that, in today’s market, the label is as important as the product.”

Beyond nostalgia is the push for healthier products, so is cane sugar better for us?

During a January 2024 TV appearance, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., now the Health and Human Services secretary, referred to environmental toxins that became prevalent in the 1980s and 90s. “One of them is high-fructose corn syrup,” he said, adding, “We are poisoning our children.” On a radio show in 2023, he also said HFCS was clearly linked to the obesity and diabetes epidemics.

When I reached out to HHS for a comment this week, the response came by way of a link to a post on the social media platform X in which the department simply wrote “Thank you, @POTUS” in response to news about Coke’s new cane sugar variety.

But food scientists poke holes in arguments that “real sugar” is better than HFCS.

The HFCS version may taste sweeter than the cane sugar one but they are not that much different metabolically.

After digestion, both sucrose (sugar) and HFCS do the same thing: they both deliver glucose and fructose to the body, said Bryan Quoc Le, founder and CEO of California-based Mendocino Food Consulting.

“The body actually cannot use fructose very effectively, and that’s true for high fructose corn syrup. But that transition is very fast. The liver is able to do that very quickly. So, ultimately, all these sugars end up as glucose anyway,” he explained.

Loads of fructose can have an inflammatory effect on the liver, but that can happen with sugar as well as HFCS. 

So what about RFK Jr.’s argument about the rising obesity and diabetes? 

Le said those could be linked to the fact that HFCS, because it’s cheaper to make than cane sugar, was suddenly prevalent in a lot more products back then. 

“It being cheaper allows it to be used more frequently, but it’s hard for me to say, ‘yes, if you just turn everything into cane sugar, all these problems will go away.’ I think it’s just that people are eating more sugar because it has become cheaper to include high-fructose corn syrup in everything.”

As for consumers themselves, their physical responses may not matter as much as their emotional ones.

“They’re practically similar in terms of their metabolism, but regardless, consumer perception is very important,” said Le, “and I think nowadays people have very strong distaste for the idea of having high-fructose corn syrup versus cane sugar.”

But is there enough cane sugar to go around?

The new Coca-Cola with cane sugar is being rolled out in the U.S. in a limited fashion for now. “(We have) introduced a new 12-oz single-serve glass bottle in select U.S. markets,” the company says.

Le points out that efforts to replace HFCS may quickly be met with supply issues.

Sugar cane in the U.S. is primarily produced in just three states with warm, subtropical climates: Florida, Louisiana, and Texas. Hawaii was a player, but it stopped production due to labour and shipping costs to the mainland.

“There’s a challenge there: Corn literally grows everywhere,” Le says. “That’s what makes high-fructose corn syrup so nice to use — it can be produced in any part of the country.”

So for a huge rollout of cane-sugar Coke, Pepsi, or any other heritage-style beverage, Le says, “there’s going to be a lag period before there will be enough cane sugar for everything.”

And in the meantime, higher demand will also drive up the price of the limited supply of cane sugar.

There is no indication from Coca-Cola that Canada will get the U.S.-style cane sugar Coke anytime soon, or ever, and the limited cane sugar supply could play a factor. 

So Canadians will continue seeing the HFCS variety and pricier Mexican Cokes on their shelves, but they may not mind too much. 

According to a 2023 report from the Conference Board of Canada, low-calorie non-alcoholic beverages made up nearly 60 per cent of all beverage purchases in Canada in 2021. That’s up from 44 per cent in 2009. By comparison, data shows that diet drinks hold just a third of the U.S. market, according to Persistence Market Research.

So many Canadians have something in common with Donald Trump: they prefer diet drinks.

National Post

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