Diet Crazes Sour the Sugar Business
by Bruce Horovitz (USA today article from 10/3/04)
Mary Poppins was wrong. “A spoonful of sugar” doesn’t cut it anymore. In a diet-obsessed culture, many Americans are going sour on sugar. Granulated sugar sales have dropped more than 4% this year and have hit the skids for three years running.
Even as the low-carb fad does a slow fade, the move toward products with reduced, low or no sugar is on fire. Five years ago, just 36 products were introduced that had reduced-sugar claims. Last year, there were 607. And through Sept. 10 this year there were 948, reports Mintel’s Global New Products Database. This isn’t primarily about diabetes or other disease fears. This is about a sea change in the national image of sugar.
Sugar used to be about Mom and apple pie. Now, even the folks at the Cheesecake Factory have concocted a cheesecake with no refined sugar added. The industry’s giant Sugar Association is so alarmed about its image implosion that it will soon announce plans to do something that it hasn’t done in nearly a decade: mount a national ad campaign that extols the virtues of sugar.
“Sugar has an image problem — and we know it,” says Andy Briscoe, CEO of the Sugar Association. He likes to remind folks that refined sugar is all natural. That it has just 15 calories per teaspoon. That unlike most artificial sweeteners, it has no added chemicals or preservatives.
Never mind that: In the popular mind now, if sugar were a cowboy, it would wear a black hat. So would many products that contain it. That’s why giant food and beverage companies are suddenly trying to squeeze the sugar — and other higher-calorie sweeteners such as ubiquitous corn syrup — out of so many products.
Even some of the most popular kid-targeted cereals are getting a makeover. General Mills recently introduced a line of Trix and Cocoa Puffs with 75% less sugar. On the front of the Trix box, the sugar-reduction claim gets more space than the Trix Rabbit, himself. (In another nod to health-consciousness, the company also just announced plans to make all of its cereals whole grain.) Kellogg’s, meanwhile, is hyping Frosted Flakes and Froot Loops with 33% less sugar. There’s even a version of Cap’n Crunch being tested with about one-third less sugar.
Some nutritionists are skeptical. “This may make it more marketable — but not necessarily more nutritious,” says William Sears, a pediatrician and author of The Family Nutrition Book: Everything You Need to Know About Feeding Your Children — From Birth through Adolescence.
“It raises the philosophical question: Is a healthier junk food still bad?” says Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition at New York University. “Most cereals are junk.”
But it isn’t just about cereal. There’s a Hawaiian Punch with 65% less sugar. And it’s not just about kids. There’s now a sugar-free Red Bull. Both Coke and Pepsi have recently introduced so-called lower-sugar (lower corn syrup, actually) colas. After taking heat from school districts in several states for its high-sugar vending machine offerings, PepsiCo has gone on a sugar-reduction rampage. This summer it introduced Pepsi Edge, which has about half the sugar of regular Pepsi, for non-diet drinkers. It recently introduced sugar-reduced Quaker cereal bars and is testing Quaker Milk Chillers, a flavored milk with about half the sugar of Nesquik and Hershey’s milks. It even has rolled out a “Light ‘n Healthy” version of Tropicana orange juice with water and Splenda added that offers about a third less sugar than the 100% juice product.
“We’re looking for anything we can do that has a credible health benefit,” says Brock Leach, senior vice president of new growth platforms at PepsiCo. The movement has even entered the candy store, where such items as sugar-free Jelly Belly jelly beans are hot.
What’s driving America’s sweet tooth rebellion? The Atkins low-carb diet. The obesity epidemic. The food police. The technology behind Splenda — the wildly successful, no-calorie artificial sweetener that is made, in part, from real sugar and has raised fewer concerns than some others. Some actually attribute it to the decline of the “low-carb” marketing tool, saying food marketers needed something new to pitch. “Low carb is not a trend that will be with us forever,” says Lynn Dornblaser, editorial director at Mintel’s Global New Products Database. “But there is a continuing trend for low sugar.”
