I’m seeing several new “zero sugar” sodas these days, in addition to the “diet” varieties. What’s the difference, and why have both?
With Coca-Cola, at least, the difference is that Diet Coke is a completely different flavor profile than regular Coke, but Coke Zero is trying to mimic the original. So that may be it.
I also have seen situations where the diet version is an older version that uses aspartame (Nutrasweet, Equal), where “zero sugar” version is newer and uses a newer sweetener like sucralose (Spenda). That said, I can’t think of an example offhand other than the aforementioned Diet Coke, which still uses aspartame. However, a version called “Diet Coke with Splenda” also apparently still exists, even though I’ve not seen it in a while.
Finally, I’ve seen some sodas just rebrand the diet soda as zero sugar. That’s what Coca-Cola did with Sprite, for example. Yet a lot of people still call it “Diet Sprite”, which might lead you to believe both still exist when they do not.
In Coke Zero the Zero used to mean “zero calories”. They have rebranded it as Coke Zero Sugar. I think it’s just trendy.
Some zero sugar sodas use stevia leaf extract for a sweetener, which I always thought was a type of sugar but I guess not.
It’s just a way to distinguish a product. When it comes to marketing, it’s not about making something meaningfully different, it’s about making the meaning different.
Companies are moving away from ‘diet’, as it implies the product does something it doesn’t really do, and they’re getting called out on it. Same reason cigarattes like Malboro now say ‘gold’ instead of ‘light’, and some products (tonic, olive oil) say lighter instead of light.
Then you have market trends - the focus amongst consumers now is that sugar is ‘bad’. So hence zero sugar being highlighted on packs.
Zero was originally introduced to target men, who didn’t want to appear to buy a girl’s product (diet). The balance of ingredients may be different, but the end is the same.
In the end it’s a balance between marketing (zero sugar is good) and government regulation in various jurisdictions requiring companies to provide more accurate descriptions for their products.
Coke kept Tab around until last Dec. but it was very hard to find. Diet Coke came out in 82
I love Diet Coke but I do not like Coke Zero. My other favorite diet pop is/was A&W diet root beer. About 2 months ago the diet root beer disappeared from the shelves and was replaced by a Zero version. It doesn’t taste the same as the diet did. I don’t like it as much, but I guess I’ll have to settle for it.
If I remember correctly, and this goes with what @BigT said above, Diet Coke is modeled after the New Coke flavor, and Coke Zero is supposed to taste like regular Coke. They also use different sweeteners.
Ah, crap, lemme just look this up.
OK, looks like kinda sorta on the first point:
Diet Coke does not use a modified form of the Coca-Cola recipe, but instead an entirely different formula based on the Tab formula. The controversial New Coke, introduced in 1985, used a version of the Diet Coke recipe that contained high-fructose corn syrup and had a slightly different balance of ingredients. In 2005, the company introduced Coca-Cola Zero (renamed Coca-Cola Zero Sugar in 2017), a sugar-free formula more closely based on original Coca-Cola.
So it’s more that New Coke was a slightly modified version of Diet Coke than the other way around.
US Diet Coke is sweetened with aspartame; US Coke Zero Sugar is sweetened with aspartame and Ace K (which is a combo that, to me, tastes more like real sugar than straight aspartame.) It appears the Canadian version of Diet Coke, though, has both aspartame and Ace K. There is an additional ingredient that Coke Zero Sugar has in both markets that Diet Coke does not: potassium citrate.
Yes, they are reformulations of their diet recipes. My evaluation has been like this:
Diet Coke - I hate this drink. It’s OK from a fountain, but is horrific in the can/bottle.
Died Pepsi - the worst diet drink I’ve had. Truly abominable.
Coke Zero Sugar - Yes, it’s good. Definitely based on Coca-Cola, not New Coke. A reasonably accurate duplicate of Coca-Cola. I like it. The cherry one is even better.
Pepsi Zero Sugar(formerly Pepsi Max) - The best diet soda I’ve had. I drink it the most of any soda. I love it. I can’t believe Diet Pepsi still has a following, but people like what they have always had, I guess.
Diet Mountain Dew - well, bad, but drinkable.
Mountain Dew Zero Sugar - better, but still nowhere near as good as regular Dew.
One more I like:
Baja Blast Zero Sugar - the best diet Mountain Dew product. I thought it was regular it tasted so great. Hard to find.
Speaking as someone who has worked in the food industry: traditionally, foods with a “diet” label have been marketed primarily towards women (edit: I now see that @SanVito noted this as well). As a result, many men won’t even consider a “diet” product. So, a different moniker, like “zero,” helps with marketing those products to men as well as women.
if you want Coke with real sugar a lot of places sell Mexican made coke especially in areas with a large Hispanic population same is true for Pepsi with sugar
Diet Dr. Pepper uses aspartame. There is no other no-calorie Dr. Pepper product.
I think there’s a couple of factors here. Which people forget.
Firstly, with Pepsi Max alongside Diet Pepsi, they showed there was a market for two different types of cola. I think this is what is happening with Zero alongside Diet, allowing people stuck in their ways with Diet to continue, but to get others to try a new flavour.
Also, and this is important overseas, is that the names don’t work in some foreign language countries. There also was a time, for instance even as close as the early 90s, that each country had a dominant cola, either Coke or Pepsi, the Eastern European ones typically Pepsi, but I remember Switzerland being a Pepsi country. You drive through Hungary and you see Silos in the countryside market Pepsi.
Often in other countries Diet Coke is called Cola Light (ie: not even the brand name Coke), and light has different meanings too (ie: low but not zero calories). So all in all I think it has multiple purposes:
- Giving an alternative cola to those who don’t like Diet coke
- Clearer name for foreign countries, and a new entry point for the Pepsi countries.
- Backing out the light tagging in foreign countries too (it’s still sold, but you might well get Diet Pepsi when you ask for Cola Light, and don’t typically ask for Coke).
Oh, yeah, that sounds familiar. Wasn’t there a bunch of “Ten” products like “Coke Ten” and the such that were essentially supposed to be diet sodas but marketed towards men? Doing a quick google before I go out the door, yes, in 2013. But I seem to recall that was also the explicit marketing reason for these products, to aim them at a more male demo, as “diet” products were supposed to be for women. (And, actually, now that I think of it, when I was growing up in the 80s/early 90s, the vast majority of people I knew who drank diet sodas were, in fact, women. Now, it’s much more mixed. I, for example, will not drink anything but a diet soda. Also, why did they go for this “zero” nonsense? In many markets abroad, the diet product is called “light.” That sounds better than either “diet” or “zero” to me.)
I haven’t seen it during the last “pandemic year” or whatever, but Pepsi and Mountain Dew with real cane sugar have been on the shelves for a few years. It was a gimmick for limited time at one point, but became permanent at some point. However, in my area, lots of varieties of soda from Coke and Pepsi are of the shelf still.
The difference is that almost all diet soda tastes horrible and zero calories/sugar stuff is almost as good as the real stuff.
Maybe something died in it.
Kosher for Passover Coke (yellow caps) is also made with sugar.
That’s really the point.
The “diet whatever” came out decades ago and has a very distinct artificial sweetener flavor which was the best food tech could come up with in 1960-whatever. Which diet-soda flavor sucks if you’re used to the real thing. But if you are used to that “diet soda” flavor, the real thing sucks equally.
The whole point of the “zeros” is they’ve advanced the flavor tech enough to make a zero calorie, zero glycemic soda that tastes all but identical to the full sugar version. And that’s cheap enough to sell at the same price. That’s a big hit with folks who never developed the taste for “diet” flavors.
I will always be Coke Zero to me! And it’s awesome!
But yeah, I think the “zero” and “diet” monikers are pure marketing. Can’t really two “Diet Cokes” can we? I drank Diet Coke happily without considering it being “too feminine”, but happily switched to coke zero because it tastes considerably better IMO. Also, Pepsi Zero tastes better than Diet Pepsi IMO.
Are they not the same exact thing, just renamed, a-la Pepsi Max/Pepsi Zero Sugar or Diet Sprite/Sprite Zero? I can’t say I can tell a difference.
I always assumed it was a marketing thing spearheaded by Coke Zero’s release and subsequent rebranding as Coca-Cola Zero Sugar to indicate that it’s the no-calorie version of regular Coca-Cola to separate it from Diet Coke.
As best as I can tell, there was some sort of advancement in artificial sweetener technology that allowed for better mimicry of the full-octane soda flavor, and with that, manufacturers have been switching to that, and rebranding as “zero sugar”, both to appeal to a broader audience (i.e. men) and indicate that the product is different and allude to it being better (diet = cutting corners to save calories). That seems to be the approach that Coca Cola took with Sprite, and that Pepsi took with Mountain Dew. Others haven’t taken that approach yet- Diet Dr. Pepper’s flavor has changed multiple times over the years, but the name itself has yet to change.