Americans began producing starch sugar from cornstarch instead of potato starch. Its cheaper than table sugar.
In 1971, food scientist in Japan found a way to produce a cheaper sweetener from corn. HFCS began to appear in frozen foods to protect against freezer burn and in vending machine products to preserve taste.
In United States HFCS became an important player in the sweetener market among sugar substitutes. Production of HFCS has increased from 51,000 mt in 1970 to nearly 8.7 million mt in 2001.
HFCS was first introduced to the beverages industry in the early 1970s. Improvements in quality encouraged parent soft drink companies to allow HFCS to replace sucrose as the primary nutritive sweetener.
In the 1980s, both Coke and Pepsi switched from a fifty-fifty blend of sugar and corn syrup to 100 percent HFCS, saving them 20 percent in sweetener costs.
By 1992, HFCS had become a major component of all major soft drinks.
HFCS is a cheaper and attractive alternative, especially for products of soft drinks who are major users of sweeteners.
Beverages sweetened with HFCS account for 80% of added sugar in the US diet and account for 80% of the recent increases in calorific intake of the global diet.
HFCS -55 has sweetness equivalent to sucrose and is used in carbonated soft drinks in the USA – such as cola.
History of High Fructose Corn Syrup in Soft Drinks
