Coca-Cola’s New Fruitwater Contains No Fruit, But Will Anyone Care?
You may be celebrating the fact that soda consumption has been fizzling out, but don’t expect the beverage industry to walk away from you (or your wallet) so easily.
Yesterday, soda giant Coca-Cola confirmed it’s launching a new line called Fruitwater. Just don’t look for any real fruit in the dazzling, bubbly drinks. There isn’t any. But it will contain the artificial sweetener Splenda, also known as sucralose, and will come in zippy flavors like black raspberry, watermelon punch, strawberry kiwi and more. The new beverage line, launching April 1, will fall under Coke’s Glaceau unit, which produces Vitaminwater and Smartwater.
“Such an ‘unsoda,’ fizzy and sweetened but packaged like bottled water, could lure people who are looking for an alternative to sugary carbonated drinks,” writes Candice Choi for the Associated Press.
In the midst of our nation’s obesity epidemic, beverage companies are hoping low- and zero-calorie soda alternatives will be the next robust market. Choi notes that the company’s Vitaminwater sales were up four percent, while Smartwater was up 25 percent.
But it hasn’t all been calm waters for Coca-Cola. Despite Vitaminwater’s nutritious-sounding name, the Center for Science in the Public Interest filed a class-action lawsuit in 2009, claiming the product used deceptive health claims in marketing the drink. Coca-Cola’s defense countered that “no consumer could reasonably be misled into thinking Vitaminwater was a healthy beverage or was composed only of vitamins and water because the sweet taste of Vitaminwater puts consumers on notice that the product contains sugar.”
For fruitless Fruitwater, an emerging environmental concern may cause the most waves.
Source: Take Part Read more
Opinion:
I have a heap of issues over this.
Using names like Smartwater, Vitaminwater, Fruitwater, H2OH, etc, should be banned because they are misleading.
What’s next eWater?
OMG! I just googled it expecting to find some humorous images and I find the stuff already exists; revitalising units and lotions (with gold no less).
Anyway, back on the subject.
Coca Cola’s assumption (defence) that “no consumer could reasonably be misled into thinking Vitaminwater was a healthy beverage…” is bullshit, the majority of consumers are hoodwinked by advertising and believe everything that is dished out to them and never think to question claims, even if the claim is built into the product name.
The use of ‘fruit’ for something that does not have fruit in it is misleading in the extreme. Coke is battling for market share and they will use every dirty trick in the book, and some that aren’t yet there, to increase profits.
Consumer interest and protection groups should be jumping on the bandwagon and proclaiming, denouncing, and prosecuting, not only Coke, but all these bastard corporations.
By using the name Fruitwater they are misleading a gullible public. A public that needs protecting from the corporate wolves.
Just because Fruitwater uses sucralose, in place of the poison aspartame, doesn’t resolve the issue. Sucralose is a chlorinated form of sucrose (sugar). It is not processed by the body, once it does it’s sweetening act, 90% passes right through your system and into the toilet.
Great, it’s gone!
But has it disappeared?
Not on your life. It remains in the sewerage, it bypasses the sewerage treatment because it is not affected by the sewerage system and passes on into the planets water supply.
Scientists have already detected elevated levels and admit that they don’t know what the effects are, or are going to be.
Are we putting our fish and seafood on a crash diet? No-one knows. People use this stuff to lose weight. Will it have the same effect on our aquatic life? Are we dooming all aquatic life to become anorexic, just skin and bones and no meat for humans to eat? Are we destabilising the one remaining food source on the planet?
Once again, we are paying scant regard to the environment.
Eco-Crap 
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