The Aspartame Case Study

The high sugar content of these drinks requires the use of sweeteners because normal glucose is not cost effective. Thus, aspartame is used because it is cheap and 200 times sweeter than sugar. It has been approved by the FDA. Therefore companies can use it within the guidelines, which are 50mg/ body weight and 40mg/body weight by the EFSA. Pepsi opted to use another sweetener, and reduce the number of calories from their drinks as a way of maintaining consumers who have become increasingly aware of their health and wanted to make better food choices. One can of Pepsi contains 185 mg of the sweetener and according to the FDA guidelines; a full grown healthy man would have to take 18 cans a day to pass the limit.

However, there have been concerns about the effect of aspartame on the health of consumers, and this has led to campaigns to drop it from the soft drink. A study done in Bologna showed that rats given the same amounts of aspartame as humans had the possibility of developing tumors (Butler, 2018). That raised eyebrows because all along, the public had been told that the sweetener does not affect the body whatsoever. Currently, it is the number one reason people are opting not to drink diet sodas. Thus, consumers are associating the rising numbers of ADHD with the sweetener (Butler, 2018). Cancer is also a significant concern because aspartame when broken down results in the formation of formaldehyde, which is a known carcinogen (Cancer.

org, 2018). Production of formaldehyde once in a while is not an issue, but prolonged consumption could lead to the development of cancer. Consumers opt to take the safer option because one cannot know the level of use that will lead to cancer or ADHD in their bodies. However, in 2016, aspartame was introduced back into the US market, as consumers preferred the original taste (Schultz, 2018). Its main competitor, Coca-Cola stuck to aspartame, and it paid off, because whole Pepsi’s sales shrink, cola's sales flourished. Coca-Cola relied on the consumer’s trait of impulse buying, whereby the purchase impulse buys along other purchases. This is evidenced by Hawkins’s Stern Impulse buying theory (Wright, 2006). The company even had to lay off people countrywide to meet the new financial requirements.

Thus, they aim to make better choices when it comes to food. Consumers still understand that the drinks are unhealthy, regardless of the number of sweeteners or calories included. They know that fizzy drinks are mostly water and sugar, and the rising trend in obesity does not encourage them to choose the drink. Thus, I feel like Pepsi misjudged the situation and took measures that were not feasible in the long run. For instance, aspartame is good for profits, because it is cheap. Conclusively, Pepsi has been marred by controversy because of its use of aspartame as its sweetener. Aspartame has been linked to several diseases and conditions. Thus, health-conscious consumers are shying away from purchasing aspartame because they do not want to be at risk of lifestyle diseases such as cancer.