By Candice Choi, Food Industry Writer
NEW YORK (AP) --Coke and Pepsi are squaring off again, this time with natural sweeteners.
PepsiCo said Wednesday it plans to roll out a reduced-calorie version of its namesake soda made with sugar and stevia, a natural sweetener. Pepsi True will be sold on Amazon.com later this month before rolling out more broadly.
Meanwhile, rival Coca-Cola is testing Coca-Cola Life, which is also made with a mix of sugar and stevia and has fewer calories than its regular soda. That drink is expected to hit markets nationally by November.
As Americans keep cutting back on soda, the two beverage giants are hoping they can win back customers by addressing concerns about the high fructose corn syrup in regular soda as well as the artificial sweeteners in diet sodas.
Executives have pushed to come up with formulas with fewer calories using natural sweeteners. But the bitter aftertaste of some natural sweeteners like stevia has made that a challenge. The solution so far has been to mix it with sugar — and therefore, some calories.
The quest to come up with new formulas has intensified recently as sales of diet sodas have declined at even steeper rates than their full-calorie counterparts. Coke and Pepsi executives have blamed the trend on worries about artificial sweeteners like aspartame, which have no calories but are seen as processed and fake.
Simon Lowden, chief marketing officer for PepsiCo's North American beverage unit, noted in a phone interview that people are no longer focusing on calories alone, but also taking into account whether a product uses artificial ingredients.
Pepsi True will come in 7.5-ounce cans, each with 60 calories. Coca-Cola Life, which is being test-marketed at select locations in the southeastern U.S, comes in 8-ounce glass bottles, each with 60 calories as well.
Ali Dibadj, a Bernstein analyst, said in a note Wednesday that interviews with store managers indicated sales of Coca-Cola Life so far seem "satisfactory."
Both Coke and Pepsi have sold midcalorie versions of their flagship sodas in the past, but those were made with different sweeteners. In 2012, PepsiCo also rolled out Pepsi Next, which has about half the calories of regular Pepsi.
Pepsi Next, which is still on shelves, is made with a mix of three artificial sweeteners and high fructose corn syrup. Lowden said he imagines Pepsi Next, which hasn't been performing strongly, will eventually be phased out in the U.S.
Harvey Weinstein hit with new sex crime charge in New York
Harvey Weinstein pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a new sex crime charge in New York, as he awaits retrial in his landmark #MeToo case.
Details of the new allegations were not immediately available. He was charged with committing a criminal sex act.
The jailed ex-movie mogul has long maintained that any sexual activity was consensual.
Prosecutors revealed last week that Weinstein had been indicted on additional sex crime charges that weren't part of the case that led to his now-overturned 2020 conviction. But the new indictment was sealed until his arraignment.
Prosecutors have said that the grand jury heard evidence of up to three alleged assaults — two in hotels in the Tribeca neighborhood and one at a lower Manhattan residential building. The purported incidents took place from the mid-2000s to 2016, prosecutors said.
But it's not clear whether any of those allegations underlie the new indictment.
While bracing for the new charges, Weinstein also is awaiting retrial after New York state's highest court this spring overturned his 2020 conviction on rape and sexual assault charges involving two women. The high court, called the Court of Appeals, ordered a new trial, which is tentatively scheduled to begin Nov. 12.
The Court of Appeals ruled that the then-trial judge unfairly allowed testimony against him based on allegations that were not part of the case. That judge's term expired in 2022, and he is no longer on the bench.
Prosecutors have said they'll seek to fold the new charges into the retrial, but Weinstein's lawyers say it should be a separate case.
Weinstein, who also was convicted in 2022 in a Los Angeles rape case, remains behind bars while awaiting his New York retrial.
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