Dive Brief:
- Coke lovers know their soda used to taste better back when cane sugar was used to sweeten the drink. Here in the Americas, some Latin American bottlers -- particularly Mexico's Arca Continental SAB-- have kept to that practice. That has turned "MexiCoke" into a cult hit here in the US., where bottles from south of the border are prized by soft-drink fans.
- But soaring costs for sugar and a plan by Mexico's government to impose a tax on soft drink sales in that country are squeezing margins.
- Arca Continental SAB says it will switch to high fructose corn syrup to save money.
Dive Insight:
As the article in Quartz points out, there's some controversy about the sugar in MexiCoke. There's apparently evidence that the stuff contains the same corn syrup that U.S bottlers use. All we know for sure is that a) lots of people say Coke with sugar tastes better; b) lots of people say "MexiCoke" tastes better than U.S. Coke; c) we remember that Coke in the U.S. tasted better in the old days; d) if the soft-drink tax in Mexico leads to an increase in the consumption of high fructose corn syrup, no one wins; and e) we really, really hate the sugar subsidies that make sugar-flavored Coke in the U.S. impossible.