As sugar reduction continues to be a top priority for food and beverage manufacturers, seven low- and zero-sugar brands are banding together to form the Alliance to Control Excessive Sugar (ACES), a new business group dedicated to promoting better-for-you products.
The group was conceived by its chairman, Super Coffee CEO Jimmy DeCicco, and includes his own company alongside mini cookie maker HighKey, prebiotic soda Olipop, lemon water brand Lemon Perfect, protein drink Koia, ice cream and cookie mix brand Enlightened, and low-sugar cereal Three Wishes.
“These brands are solving the same problem, and the problem is that food can taste good while being good for you,” DeCicco said. “I think we’ve been inundated with too many carbs and sugars, especially in our drinks, from big, big sugar corporations like Coke and Pepsi and Dr Pepper – and there’s no doubt that sugar and flavor is addicting. But what we do at Super Coffee, and what ACES is all about, is to remove as much sugar as we can, but still make our favorite products taste flavorful.”
ACES launched this week with a website, sweetaces.org, where consumers can read about the project and sign up for themselves or a friend or family member to receive a free “Passport” style coupon book, which includes $30 worth of manufacturer discounts for each of the seven brands. Each brand has pledged up to $1 million in discounts for their products.
Margaret Wishingrad, co-founder and CEO of Three Wishes, noted that the program purposefully has a “discovery” component built in which, through the website, will help consumers learn about new products.
“For someone who knows brands like Super Coffee and Olipop, maybe they haven’t tried Three Wishes or vice versa,” she said. “I think it’s a really good way to find what brands are like other brands.”
DeCicco noted the broader goal, however, is to draw in new consumers who have not yet made the leap to a better-for-you lifestyle and help to push more brands across the food and beverage sector to reduce the amount of sugar in their products.
“It’s not just ‘Hey, try our products and hopefully you become a customer’ it is ‘Hey, is there somebody in your life who you want to see live a healthier lifestyle?’” he said. “If you know somebody who can’t put down the Coca-Cola, or the Cinnamon Toast Crunch or the Oreos, then definitely send them a health passport with all these free coupons from ACES brands, introducing them to the healthy options that still taste good.”
According to DeCicco, the ideas behind ACES date back to 2018 when Super Coffee wanted to adopt a charitable mission, but could not afford to donate money as it needed to invest its cash back into the company to maintain growth. Instead, the brand began promoting approximately how much sugar it had “removed” from consumers’ diets by comparing its sales to more sugary competitors, which for 2018 was estimated to be around 1 million pounds.
Now, ACES is borrowing a similar model, touting on its website that Americans consumed 11 million metric tons (24 billion pounds) of sugar in 2021. The site also includes a “manifesto” calling for better tasting products that use less sugar and features an interactive easter egg where users can type in the chemical formula for sugar to reveal a slide comparing Super Coffee’s nutritionals to other bottled coffees.
Sugar’s longstanding public enemy status has continued to fuel the growth of better-for-you brands as consumers increasingly seek to reduce their sugar intake. A 2021 Euromonitor report found that 53% of respondents said they aimed to “eat less sugar” as their chosen weight loss method in 2020. Fifty-eight percent of consumers looking to avoid sugar said it was “better for me to avoid it,” and 57% said a low sugar diet “makes me feel healthier.” Even among the big food and beverage companies that have often taken the blame for proliferating unhealthy diets are embracing the trend, as “Zero Sugar” sodas fuel growth for companies like Coca-Cola and PepsiCo (the segment was up 19.5% in 2020, per Mintel, doubling 8.4% growth for sugary sodas).
According to DeCicco, ACES currently plans to grow awareness through the individual brands’ social media channels, as well as tapping their respective celebrity influencers to promote the website.
While ACES’ current focus is on education and providing discounts on products from its partner brands, DeCicco said that he hopes the project will eventually grow into a major industry organization. In its announcement, the group has put out a call for other low and no sugar brands to join and DeCicco added that he hopes that consumers will get engaged and nominate their favorite brands to get involved.
“Ultimately, we want this thing to scale massively,” DeCicco said. “The more sugar-free or low sugar options that we get involved with ACES, the bigger the impact that we can all collectively make. Eventually, someday, I see this thing building out sets in grocery stores for brands that are a part of the ACES coalition. Instead of the Healthy Living set at a Wegmans, perhaps it’s an ACES set with brands that you recognize.”