Why Coke Isn't Getting Rid of High-Fructose Corn Syrup

Our colleague Laura Cooper covers the beverage industry.

And earlier this week, she joined me in the studio for a taste test.

In front of you, you have two beverages, two cups, actually wine glasses, because we are a classy show at the journal.

Both of them have Coke in them.

One of them is made with cane sugar, the other one with high-fructose corn syrup.

Oh, it's like like a wine tasting, but it's Coke.

Indeed.

Go ahead and let's start with this glass on the left.

All right.

This is definitely it.

100%.

Oh, you're really confident that that's the high fructose corn syrup.

I'm very confident.

Tell me about the taste.

Well, it tastes like Coke.

It's got like some hints of vanilla in there.

The carbonation, there's a lot of carbonation.

You can see it on the top.

It's got a little bite to it and

just tastes very familiar.

All right, let's see the wine glass on the right now.

All right.

Give that a little.

This one has a lot less bubbles.

Yeah, this is the real one, I think.

Yeah.

Big reveal.

You were wrong.

It's the other way around.

Really?

Your first taste was in fact the Coke with cane sugar.

Was it?

Laura wasn't able to tell the difference between Coke made with high fructose corn syrup and Coke made with cane sugar.

But one person says he definitely can, President Donald Trump.

So on Truth Social, a couple of weeks ago, he made a post about this, and

he said that he had been in contact with Coca-Cola about using cane sugar and that they had agreed to do it.

Quote, I have been speaking to Coca-Cola about using real cane sugar in Coke in the United States, and they have agreed to do so.

And he said it was a very good move by them and you'll see it's just better.

Trump's declared preference for Coke with cane sugar and his announcement that Coca-Cola would be making changes set off a frenzy of speculation about what was next for one of America's favorite drinks.

But Laura had another question.

Even if Coke wanted to make the switch to real sugar, could it pull it off without going flat?

I think it would be really tough.

High fructose corn syrup isn't everything, and it has been for many decades, and there's just not enough sugar to go around.

Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power.

I'm Annie Minoff.

It's Thursday, July 31st.

Coming up on the show, why Coca-Cola Embraced Corn Syrup and Why It's So Hard to Turn Back.

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The recipe for Coca-Cola is famously secret.

But when the drink debuted in 1886, one ingredient was a given, sugar.

Back then, sugar was the go-to for most soda makers.

But a lot of that sugar didn't come from the U.S.

The climate in most of the U.S.

just isn't ideal for growing sugar cane.

It's a very specific crop in a very specific environment, humidity-wise.

Hot, humid, that's what you need for sugarcane.

Think of Louisiana.

Yeah, yeah.

So, to satisfy America's sweet tooth, soda makers like Coca-Cola historically relied on sugar imports from other countries, and that reliance could leave them vulnerable.

Take what happened in the 1950s.

The U.S.

imported a lot of sugar from Cuba.

And then, the communist revolution there upended that trade.

Russians turned out in thousands to show the world, and America in particular, that Nikki loves film.

President Castro had the red carpet treatment all the way to the red square.

With Cuba now aligned with the U.S.'s big Cold War enemy, the USSR, the U.S.

put restrictions on importing Cuban sugar.

There were embargoes put in place, and the United States,

it was very expensive to have sugar.

And so what did that rising price of sugar, you know, you have less supply, price goes up, what did that mean for soda companies like Coca-Cola?

It meant they had to find another way to sweeten their drinks because if you're having a soda, you want to feel that crisp sweetness, and they turn to high-fructose corn syrup.

High-fructose corn syrup.

It was developed by scientists in the 50s and 60s, who discovered a way to transform cornstarch into a sweet syrup containing a high amount of a sugar called fructose.

And most importantly, for soda makers, it was less expensive than sugar.

So it is a syrup that is used as a sweetener.

Basically, more than 7 million tons are produced by mills that grind up corn to make these sweeteners, and they go into your soda.

So instead of sugar, you'll put in the syrup, and that will be the sweetener.

How different is it from sugar?

I mean, taste-wise, it really, if you're someone who loves sugar, maybe you can taste the difference, but the industry would say it's not that different in terms of taste.

And what was great about high fructose corn syrup from a soda maker's perspective?

From a soda maker's perspective, we've got a lot of corn in America.

Also, it's a lot cheaper than sugar, right?

And it does the same job as sugar, arguably.

It sweetens your soda.

So if it's cheaper, it's plentiful, why not try it when things are really expensive?

Coca-Cola and many other soda makers made the switch to high fructose corn syrup in the 1980s.

And the change stuck.

Coca-Cola, Pepsi, everybody is still using it in soda for the most part on a large scale because we've got a lot of corn.

Today, pretty much all Coke sold in this country is made with high fructose corn syrup.

But if you're motivated enough, you can still find Coke sweetened with real sugar.

You've probably heard of it.

It comes in a glass bottle and it's not made in the US.

So that would be the Mexican Coke, and that's made with Mexican cane sugar.

It's more like boutique-y, like it's a, it's specialized.

It's not like the one you'd pick up in Target while you're shopping.

And it has that glass bottle.

It just feels a little classier.

It is in a glass bottle, and a lot of people love it.

I'm telling you, Mexican Coke like hits different, man.

They have different sugars.

It is night and day.

It's way more fresh and it has more flavor.

Tastes very like rich and caramel-y, like real sugar.

Okay, what nobody's saying?

The Coke out of Mexico?

Guess

I've also heard that Coke during Passover tastes different.

Yes, that would be the Coke kosher for Passover.

It has a yellow cap and it is made specifically with sugar.

So in the US, you can find your Passover Coke and your Mexican Coke, but those are both pretty niche.

High fructose corn syrup is still the main sweetener in your classic Coke.

But then came Donald Trump's post, promising to make Coke sugary again.

But that is easier said than done.

Trump's interest in Coke isn't new.

The president is a Coca-Cola enthusiast.

He drinks a lot of Diet Coke.

Trump famously has a button on the Oval Office's Resolute Desk to summon a can of Diet Coke at will.

But Trump's interest in Coke's ingredients, that seems new.

And it may take its inspiration from a powerful wing in the Trump coalition, Maha, or the Make America Healthy Again movement, which has declared war on high-fructose corn syrup.

Stop consuming products that contain high-fructose corn syrup.

Any amount less of high-fructose corn syrup in the American diet is a good thing for Americans.

In the U.S., they give us the addictive form that makes us fatter, sicker, and more prone to type 2 diabetes.

Read the ingredients.

It's got high fructose corn syrup.

It's you.

Robert F.

Kennedy Jr., Maha's leader and Trump's Secretary of Health and Human Services, is one of those high fructose corn syrup critics.

It's interesting.

RFK has said that he believes high fructose corn syrup is a recipe for obesity and diabetes.

However, at the same time, he is called sugar poison.

So it's a very interesting situation.

I think that a lot lot of people broadly, from what I understand, feel that cane sugar is healthier because it's not as processed and it grows out of the ground.

Like you can literally go and cut down sugar cane.

So I think that people just think that sugar is more natural.

But in terms of the health impact, some studies have found very little difference between drinks sweetened with high fructose corn syrup and drinks sweetened with sucrose, aka cane sugar.

What really matters from a health perspective is how much sugar, or high-fructose corn syrup, you're consuming.

Most people would be unified on the idea that sugary drinks are not good for you.

Yes, doctors are on board with,

this is not a health food.

Drinking lots of sugary soda is associated with weight gain and a higher risk of obesity, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease.

A spokesman for Health and Human Services said that Secretary Kennedy welcomes any move that signals a return to natural ingredients.

But he added, quote, no one is calling soda a health food.

Trump's post about Coke tapped into the anti-high fructose corn syrup zeitgeist, but it was pretty short on details.

So Laura reached out to Coca-Cola to try to figure out what was going on.

They were like, hold tight.

And they did send out a blanket statement saying that they appreciated President Trump's enthusiasm for Coca-Cola and to stay tuned to learn more about what was happening with the cane sugar.

Details were not immediately forthcoming.

And so the sugar rumor mill went into overdrive.

Was Coke really gonna ditch high-fructose corn syrup?

Laura was skeptical.

At its core, it's what I was yelling in the newsroom when this happened.

There's just not enough sugar.

Many people may not like high-fructose corn syrup right now.

But Laura says that doesn't change the underlying economics for soda makers.

There's not enough sugar in the country.

The sugar that is here is expensive.

That's a structural issue.

That's a government issue.

That's a growing issue.

That's an environment issue.

And the industry is very used to and reliant on high fructose corn syrup and the corn industry.

So these are very important things to them and very ingrained processes to change.

Could more sugar be imported?

Potentially, but there are tariffs in place with a lot of the providers of this sugar.

Sugar tariffs predate Trump.

The U.S.

has long used quotas and tariffs to try to protect domestic sugar production.

How has the corn industry responded to this pushback against high fructose corn syrup?

The corn industry is very concerned because roughly 3% of U.S.

corn production goes towards making corn syrup for food and drinks.

And the Corn Refiners Association estimates that if you were to get rid of this for U.S.

food and beverage products, that would slash corn prices by as much as 34 cents a bushel.

Also, you know, my colleague Patrick Thomas spoke to some farmers and they said if Coke decided to use cane sugar, that would hurt their bottom line big time.

Like, it's a huge concern.

Finally, early last week, Coca-Cola revealed its plans during an earnings call.

We're going to be bringing a Coke sweetened with U.S.

cane sugar into the the market this fall.

And I think that will be an enduring option for consumers.

Turns out the company was not changing the recipe for Coke.

It wasn't going all in on sugar, as some believed that President Trump had suggested in his post.

What it was doing was creating a new product line, a special new version of Coke.

It would be on shelves along with Diet Coke, Coke Zero, and Classic Coke.

When I spoke to the CEO, he said, we are not leaving corn syrup.

This is a line.

He described it, and I thought this was a good way to describe it, as an end, not or strategy.

A yes and.

Yes, and.

So this is kind of a more limited approach that Coke is taking.

But is there even enough U.S.

grown sugar to pull that off?

Listen, the Coke CEO, James Quincy, told me they have enough sugar to make their line.

That's and when I asked him, like, what do we do if we need more sugar?

And he he said we grow more sugar, right?

But you know, this is a line.

This is not getting rid of high fructose corn syrup.

So it sounds like for now, kind of the dream of Coca-Cola going back to real sugar is limited?

Yes, it's limited, but it's not a limited time thing.

It's just a limited line.

So you would have to find Coca-Cola U.S.

cane sugar.

It's coming out in the fall.

We don't have any exact dates.

I think everyone was interested, and I'm even more curious to see how well it sells.

All right, we're at the end of the interview.

You're probably kind of thirsty.

Which glass are you reaching for?

I don't know.

I'm just going to drink them both.

All right, thanks, Laura.

Thank you.

That's all for today, Thursday, July 31st.

The journal is a co-production of Spotify and the Wall Street Journal.

Additional reporting in this episode by Andrea Peterson, Dean Seale, and Patrick Thomas.

Thanks for listening.

See you tomorrow.