PepsiCo, Inc. (NYSE:PEP) Changes Its Stance on Aspartame

tags: PEP

Back in April last year PepsiCo, Inc. (NYSE:PEP) announced that after spending two years surveying consumers and doing taste tests they have decided to start using sucralose instead of the controversial sweetener aspartame in Diet Pepsi. In August 2015 Pepsi’s new diet soda became available for purchase but instead of being greeted with glowing reviews it was met with harsh criticism. Long time drinkers of Diet Pepsi quickly made their opinions rather clear with numerous negative comments posted on the various social media platforms.

For months Pepsi stood behind its decision but the soda giant finally gave up and on Monday announced that it will bring back diet Pepsi with aspartame in September. The company stated that this will give consumer more choice in diet colas.

The falling market share of Pepsi’s diet soda may have also played its role. According to a industry tracker the U.S. retail sales of Diet Pepsi fell by 10.6% in volume terms in the first three months of the year. At the same time PEP‘s soda market share declined by 0.4 percentage points to 4.1%. For the same period Coca-Cola’s Diet Coke declined by 5.7% to a soda-market share of 7.4%. It remains to be seen if the re-introduction of the aspartame Diet Pepsi will manage to appease consumers.

During the regular trading session yesterday Pepsi’s stock slumped down to an intraday-low of $101.5 but managed to recover and by the time of the closing bell it had climbed to $102.14. At this price the stock is sitting just 4.48% below its 52-week high of $106.94 that was registered in May.