The US-headquartered food and beverage giant is likely to roll out the refined products ahead of schedule, executives aware of the development said.
NEW DELHI: PepsiCo has stepped up work on reducing salt and sugar in the beverages and snacks it sells in India amid growing public concern over high levels of some ingredients in packaged foods available in stores.
The US-headquartered food and beverage giant is likely to roll out the refined products ahead of schedule, executives aware of the development said. Last week, the Food Safety & Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) had said that it is setting up an expert committee to regulate salt, sugar and fat in foods.
Among the products the company is working on is '7 Up Revive', a soft drink touted to contain less sugar than the regular '7 Up'. The beverage is currently being sold in select markets of south India. The date for its nationwide rollout is being brought forward, the executives, who did not wish to be named, said.
"PepsiCo is also stepping up distribution of its low-sugar, low-salt oats brand 'Quaker Oats', while other low-salt, low-calorie variants of its snacks brands, including 'Kurkure' and 'Lay's', are also in the process of being researched, and the company wants to launch these ahead of schedule," one of the executives said.
A spokesperson for PepsiCo said, "As part of our global commitment to performance with purpose, we continue to refine our food and beverage choices to meet changing consumer needs by reducing sodium, added sugars and saturated fat, and developing a broader portfolio of product choices."
The expert committee being set up by FSSAI will recommend the limits for such ingredients.
"The adverse effects caused by food, which is high in salt, sugar and fat, also commonly referred to as 'junk food', on the health of consumers has been a serious concern," the regulator had posted on its website last week. It will also additionally give recommendations on labelling of these ingredients and prescribe regulations for displaying salt, sugar and fat content in foods being sold in restaurants and by caterers.
The move, however, comes amid low offtake of such products in the Indian market.
"In general, moves like these are in the right direction. But historically, many similar attempts across industry haven't worked," said Amit Khurana, programme head, food safety, for research and advocacy firm Centre for Science and Environment (CSE).
Sugar-free products, which contain artificial sweeteners like aspartame, haven't worked amid concerns that the sweeteners are harmful for health and in some cases are carcinogenic. PepsiCo chairman Indra Nooyi had said at the company's first-quarter earnings call in April that globally millennials were going back to "real sugar" drinks and foods, shunning diet products with "artificial" sweeteners. "We've never seen consumers as confused as they are today," she had said.
In India, the contribution of diet drinks such as Diet Coke, Diet Pepsi and Coke Zero to overall sale of carbonated beverage remains under 2%.
Two years ago, PepsiCo's baked snacks range under its 'Aliva' brand was pulled off shelves because of lack of consumer interest. Parle Products too had withdrawn its baked chips before that for the same reason.
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