History of HFCS in soft drinks

Today, glucose is corn syrup is converted to fructose enzymatically, the resulting corn syrup is much sweeter. The development of high fructose corn syrup can be traced back to 1811 when the Russian chemist Kirchoff reported his discovery that starch yielded a sweet substance when heated with acid.

These experiments established the basis for the commercial production of starch syrup and crude starch sugars. High Fructose Corn Syrup was patented by Takasaki and Tanabe in 1966.

The Clinton Corn Processing Co in Clinton, Iowa first commercialized the production of High Fructose Corn Syrup in 1967.

Sugar prices rose during the 1970s, and food and beverage manufacturers began to replace cane sugar sucrose with High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS). In 1975 Coca-Cola started using HFCS for 25% of the sweetener in fruit-flavored beverages. Although HFCS was inexpensive to produce, sugar was a relatively cheap community at the time.

In 1982, Congress enacted the Sugar Price Stabilization Law, which placed strict limit of the amount of sugar that could be imported into the United States. The law was ostensibly intended to protect domestic sugar producers from foreign competition.

The rice of sugar began to climb, and the food industry became the rise of HFCS in the food supply.

In November 1984, both Coca-Cola and Pepsi Cola announced on the same day that they planned to replace refined sugar with HFCS in their regular and caffeine-free soft drinks. By 1992, HFCS had become a major component of all major soft drinks.
History of HFCS in soft drinks