Diet Pepsi Sweetened With Aspartame May Be Sold Online

(Julia Zucker)

Earlier this year, PepsiCo announced that Diet Pepsi, long sweetened with aspartame (some of us still call it by the brand name NutraSweet), would be switching over to sucralose (which you’ll find in Splenda). But just in case people still crave that distinctive aspartame taste, Pepsi’s CEO says the company will find a way to make it available.

The Chicago Tribune reports that during today’s PepsiCo quarterly earnings call, CEO Indra Nooyi explained that “for those consumers who still love Diet Pepsi with aspartame, we’ll figure out how to make it available online.”

Selling limited quantities of select beverages online seems to be increasing in popularity. First Coca-Cola sold out its short run of Surge that it sold through Amazon late last year, then Pepsi hinted this may be the way it will go for a re-release of the oft-derided Crystal Pepsi.

In addition to some people preferring the taste of aspartame to other low-calorie sweeteners, there are some consumers who claim that sucralose can be a trigger for migraine headaches and other ailments — claims that are denied by the makers of the sweetener.

While Pepsi was up front about its switch to sucralose, some in the beverage business have used the sweetener to lower calorie counts without making a big announcement.

Perhaps Pepsi learned to be more transparent after the blowback from quietly adding Sucralose to Sierra Mist?

And back in 2013 Seagrams began using sucralose in its ginger ale to reduce the calories from sugar. While the bottles did declare that they contained 25% less sugar than other ginger ales, one had to look at the ingredients list to figure out how they did it.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist