[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]Diet Pepsi is hoping a new version of the drink which goes on sale this week in the US will help halt its flagging customer numbers.Consumption of soft drinks has been steadily decreasing over the past decade - seen in a 5.2% drop in Diet Pepsi sales last year, something the company has attributed to the drink's recipe including controversial sweetener aspartame.
PepsiCo senior vice president Seth Kaufman said of the new aspartame-free version: "It's the number one thing our customer have been calling about."
Instead, the new drink, which will be announced on the can with the words "now aspartame free" above the famous logo, will contain a blend of sucralose and acesulfame potassium, often known as Ace-K.
The NHS website says Ace-K is calorie-free, up to 200 times sweeter than sugar and is excreted from the body unchanged - as opposed to being stored or broken down.
Critics say it has not been studied enough and may be carcinogenic, affect pregnancy or cause tumours but the US and EU have given it the go-ahead for general use.
The change will affect all varieties of Diet Pepsi, such as Caffeine Free Diet Pepsi and Wild Cherry Diet Pepsi but not other PepsiCo drinks, such as Diet Mountain Dew.
Other diet soft drinks such as Diet Coke, Diet Dr Pepper and Fanta Zero still use aspartame, which the Food and Drug Administration has declared safe, despite some studies claiming it caused tumours in rats.
There are no plans to drop the controversial sweetener from Diet Pepsi in the UK, with a spokeswoman saying: "Aspartame remains an important sweetener in some Pepsi beverages around the world".
“Decades of research has shown that aspartame is safe.
"We are simply responding to US specific consumer desire, in that market, for a great-tasting diet cola without aspartame. This change is specific to Diet Pepsi beverages sold in the US only."
