COCA-Cola has made a big change to one of its classic soft drinks, but fans aren’t impressed.
The fizzy drinks maker has tweaked the recipe of Fanta Orange Zero Sugar.
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The fizzy drinks giant used to sweeten its sugar-free Fanta Orange alternative with just two ingredients – acesulfame K and aspartame.
However, the brand’s “new and improved” Fanta Zero Sugar soft drink now contains several different sweeteners which are likely to explain the changing flavour.
The new recipe drink is sweetened with cyclamates, acesulfame-K, sucralose, steviol glycosides and neohesperidine DC and no longer contains aspartame.
However, fans of the drink have been left fuming over the change.
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Taking to X (formerly Twitter) one Fanta Fan said: “No idea what Coca Cola are up to but the new Fanta Zero is horrible.
“Phenomenal downgrade on the old one.”
Another said: “Coca Cola what have you done to the zero sugar Fanta in the UK?
“I used to love it, the new so called ‘improved’ version tastes like chemicals!”
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“The new Fanta Zero is diabolical and is not fit for human consumption.
“Change back immediately,” said a third Fanta fan.
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Shoppers can spot the new from the old, where bottles have a “new irresistible taste” splashed on the front.
The new Fanta Orange Zero bottles are popping up across stores nationwide and were hard launched in London with the help of Made in Chelsea‘s Jamie Laing.
Charlotte Walsham, fanta brand manager said in a statement: “Our new and irresistible taste for Fanta Orange Zero has been created in response to the public’s changing tastes and habits, and is the result of extensive consumer testing.
“Fanta fans are sure to love the new taste of the popular drink, with research even revealing Fanta Orange Zero is the best tasting Orange Zero.
“We can’t wait for customers across Great Britain and Ireland to try it.”
The new Fanta Orange Zero is available in stores nationwide across Great Britain and Ireland.
Prices of Fanta Zero Sugar have stayed stable, and a pack of eight 330ml cans costs £3.75 at Asda and Morrisons.
Single 500ml bottles will set you back £1.70 at Asda, and two-litre bottles cost £1.75 at the same supermarket.
Fanta fans were last left fuming when the brand reduced the amount of sugar in its drinks to beat the government’s sugar tax back in 2017.
A new lower-sugar recipe, which saw Fanta Orange contain 33% less sugar, was introduced.
The sugar tax then came into force on April 6, 2018.
Soft drinks companies have to pay extra in tax for soft drinks with more than 5g and 8g of sugar.
In March 2023, PepsiCo cut the amount of sugar in its iconic Pepsi drink by 57%.
In August 2023, Suntory Beverage & Food GB&I tweaked the flavour of its flagship Lucozade Original and Orange energy drinks.
The supplier swapped out the sweetener aspartame for sucralose.
Why are recipes changing?
ANALYSIS by James Flanders, The Sun’s Chief Consumer Reporter:
Food and drinks makers have been known to tweak their recipes.
They often say that this is down to the changing tastes of customers.
There are a number of reasons why this could be done.
For example, government regulation, like the “sugar tax,” forces firms to change their recipes.
Some manufacturers might choose to tweak their recipes to cut costs.
They may opt for an alternative ingredient that’s cheaper, especially when costs of ingredients are rising in order to keep prices the same.
One major element that’s been causing a lot of change in recent years is the hot-topic debates around the use of certain sweeteners.
Fizzy drinks giants Coca-Cola and PepsiCo have long relied on the use of aspartame to give their sugar-free alternatives that sweet flavour without the extra calories.
Discovered in 1965 by American chemist James Schlatter, aspartame is about 200 times sweeter than granulated sugar.
The low-calorie sugar substitute can be found in soft drinks, gelatin, confectionery, desserts, and sugar-free cough drops.
It is also used to enhance the flavour of baked and canned foods, powdered drink mixes, sweets and puddings.
However, aspartame’s use in food and beverages has been debated for decades and has also prompted some companies to remove the compound from their products.
The World Health Organisation’s cancer arm deemed the sweetener a “possible carcinogen” last year, but agreed it remains safe to consume at its current agreed levels.
Fanta’s removal of the sweetener from its sugar-free alternatives isn’t a first.
PepsiCo removed aspartame from some of its fizzy drinks in 2015 but soon reintroduced it after customers complained.
Last August, Suntory Beverage & Food GB&I tweaked the flavour of its flagship Lucozade Original and Orange energy drinks.
While the amount of sugar in every bottle remains unchanged, the supplier swapped out the sweetener aspartame for sucralose.
Again, fans of the iconic drink were left furious.
It’ll be interesting to see if Fanta’s new zero-sugar recipe holds its place now that the soft drink’s fans are already in uproar.
Despite the warning on aspartame, I think it’s highly unlikely that it’ll be disappearing from our drinks anytime soon.
In other news, millions of fizzy drinks bottles now come with the cap attached.
The move is designed to help with recycling efforts.
But plenty of people haven’t been on board with the green gesture, calling for the bottle caps to be changed back.
Coca-Cola started rolling out the new attached caps for the first time in late 2022 for 500ml bottles.
Over the summer of 2023 the new design started rolling out to 1.5L bottles of Fanta, Diet Coke and Coke Zero.
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The drinks giant aims to get the new caps on all drinks by the middle of 2024, including fizzy faves like Dr Pepper and Sprite.
Although both bottles and caps have been recyclable for years, soft drinks giants found that many caps were being discarded instead, prompting the new design.
