i know that diet coke is the best-selling diet cola, and that millions and millions of people absolutely love it, but... it still has that bitter after taste which a lot of the new diet sodas no longer have... because of ace-k.

should diet coke switch to an aspartame/ace-k blend? and... if they did... would they have to put stickers on the cans/bottles to announce the change? or could they do it without mentioning it?

after drinking the ace-k and splenda sodas, i really find it difficult to drink diet coke any more.

At least at this point, that would be suicide for Coke.

That's why Coke Zero and Pepsi One aren't incredibly successful, because diet fundamentalists are hooked on aspertame.

I don't see why they couldn't add ace-K in order to mask some of the aftertaste without changing the flavor or sweetness level. I had some UK Diet Coke (with ace-K) on a flight from Europe, and it pretty much tasted like a slightly less bitter version of the US formula. But, I suppose the diehards would raise hell just because of the mere fact that they were tinkering with the formula.

[ 04-14-2006, 03:06 PM: Message edited by: mikibacsi1124 ]

Yes, they could change the sweetener to ace-K and casual drinkers would like the change.

But the Diet Coke drinkers that drink several bottles/cans a day would not. Changing the sweetener would completely change the taste of the drink, no matter what kind of chemical magic they could cook up to hide the lack of aspertame.

Look around the board, look at the backlash that has been made by the old Diet Mt Dew fans. It's because they changed the sweetener.

The old Diet Dew's fanbase is miniscule compared to that of Diet Coke. The backlash would be enormous.

I think it will happen eventually, but I have no clue how they'll do it.

Maybe Coke can change the formula once per year by adding a slight amount of ace-K each year to be barely noticeable. In 20 years, the formula could be fully coverted. It's just crazy enough to work.

thanks guys. but would they have to announce that they're adding ace-k... even if slowly?

Originally posted by DJ HawaiianShirt:
Maybe Coke can change the formula once per year by adding a slight amount of ace-K each year to be barely noticeable. In 20 years, the formula could be fully coverted. It's just crazy enough to work. [/QB]

Isn't that what they kinda did while transitioning from saccharin to aspartame in the 80s? And from sugar to HFCS for that matter?

Originally posted by popologist:
thanks guys. but would they have to announce that they're adding ace-k... even if slowly?

They added ace-K to Diet Sprite, Fresca, and some other sodas a few years ago without any fanfare. I had been drinking Diet Sprite regularly around that time and I didn't notice any difference until I gazed at the ingredient label one day.

people WILL notice the difference in diet coke though. also, keep in mind, diet coke sells almost as much as pepsi, so... changing the formula (even if it's just the sweetener) could tick a lot of people off.

honestly, after the whole "new coke" fiasco, coca-cola is afraid to change the diet coke formula at all. though they did change it to add nutra-sweet. so, maybe, someday they will.

I agree it would be suicide at this point- they are better offering Splenda and other versions. If any of these alternative versions take off then they could try and incorpereate the two. But at his point Diet Coke's formula is as likely to change as TaB's. Though the slow transition idea is a good one I feel ace-k will be insignificant in 5-10 years. Sweeteners have just been progressing so quickly recently.

I honestly think there are too many and most people are confused with all these sweeteners and fancy names so they are staying with what they know best.

I honestly do not hear anyone (the general public) talk about Ace-K, the only stuff that people do seem to talk about the past few years is Splenda as a sugar substitute.

If it's not broke, don't fix it!