White House Push for Cane-Sugar Coke Reignites Soda Wars

Mexican Coke could soon lose its elite status at American taquerias. President Trump said Wednesday that the Coca-Cola Co. has agreed to switch from using high-fructose corn sugar in its namesake soda to real cane sugar in the US. Coca-Cola hasn’t confirmed the change. 

As investors prepped for Coke’s cane-sugar future, corn syrup producers Archer-Daniels-Midland and Ingredion both saw their shares fizzle. Futures contracts for corn faltered while ones for raw sugar rose. 

Complex Sugars

Not everyone agrees with the admin’s stance against corn syrup. Coca-Cola said on X that high-fructose corn syrup is safe and “actually just a sweetener made from corn.” Medical experts haven’t found any significant differences between corn- and cane-derived sugar. 

Big Corn also cobbled together a defense. A trade group representing corn producers said that a swap from corn to cane could cost the US thousands of jobs and hurt farms’ income with “no nutritional benefit.” 

Corn has been ingrained in the soda biz for decades:

• Coca-Cola originally switched from using cane sugar to corn syrup in the 1980s to cut costs — cane sugar, which is mainly produced in tropical and subtropical countries, was expensive because of tariffs, while US corn was (and still is) supported by subsidies. PepsiCo CEO Ramon Laguarta told CNBC Thursday that sugar costs more in the US than other countries and that a sugar swap hinges on making it less expensive. 
• Today, tariffs are once again driving up the price of sugar. US sugar cost double the global rate last year, the Sweetener Users Association found. Food and beverage companies have already hiked their prices to reflect tariffs, and swapping a main ingredient could mean more increases. 

Syrupy Slope: Trump himself is a known aficionado of Diet Coke, and his health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has pushed for food and beverage companies to nix ingredients like corn syrup, seed oils and artificial food dyes. (Just don’t come for aspartame.) PepsiCo yesterday said it will relaunch Lay’s and Tostitos with all-natural dyes and flavors next year. Kraft Heinz, Nestlé and General Mills have all pledged to stop using artificial dyes in their products. But phasing out non-natural dyes, which several major food companies said they don’t use in the majority of their products, may be easier than ditching corn syrup.