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posted by martyb on Friday September 08 2017, @10:42AM   Printer-friendly
from the How-sweet-it-is! dept.

Coca-Cola is using the HeroX crowd-sourcing platform to hold a $1 million competition for a new sugar substitute:

"Sugar is now the number one item that consumers want to avoid in their diets," says Darren Seifer, a food and beverage industry analyst with the NPD Group. The message to consume less is coming from health experts around the globe.

It's a challenge for the beverage industry, as is the fact that many consumers don't like the idea of artificial sweeteners found in diet drinks. So, the search for new, alternative sweeteners that can appeal to consumers' changing tastes is in full swing. And Coca-Cola has turned to crowd-sourcing.

The company has launched a competition on the crowd-sourcing platform HeroX. According to this description on Coca-Cola's corporate website, Coke is seeking "a naturally sourced, safe, low- or no-calorie compound that creates the taste sensation of sugar when used in beverages." The company says, "one grand prize winner will be awarded $1 million in October 2018."

So, can scientists come up with this kind of sweetener? "Well, this is a hundred-million dollar question, because it's so difficult and so potentially lucrative," says Paul Breslin, a professor in the nutritional sciences department at Rutgers University and a member of the Monell Chemical Senses Center.

Hang on, is it a one million dollar question or a hundred-million dollar question? Maybe I should get Silicon Valley to fund my sugar substitute instead of Coca-Cola.

Related: Coca-Cola Pulls Twitter Campaign after being Tricked into Quoting "Mein Kampf"
Twitter Monetizes By Adding Coca-Cola Emoji (where is our sponsored emoji?)
How Coca Cola's 3D Times Square Advertising Sign Works


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 08 2017, @11:39PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 08 2017, @11:39PM (#565391)
    Bloody hell, couldn't you find a better source than Mercola? What you assert might perhaps be true but Joe Mercola's site is full of so much misinformation and bullshit that it's hard to take any article on it seriously.
  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday September 09 2017, @12:25AM (1 child)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Saturday September 09 2017, @12:25AM (#565406) Journal

    Bloody hell - refute the information, confirm the information, or whatever. Don't whine that you think the messanger has body odor, or his cousin gave you the drip. What I hear you saying is, "That data might be interesting, but the author has cooties, so I'm not listening!" Do a search on the subject, "Diet foods cause weight gain". Better, do diet drinks.

    Sugar might be considered a drug, if we define the term rather loosely. Artificial sweeteners don't need such a loose definition. They are drugs, and they tend to be addictive. In your quest to satisfy that addiction, you incidentally consume vast quantities of unhealthy calories.

    The only sweetener that I know of that is demonstrably healthier than natural sugar is honey. But, wait - isn't honey just an amalgamation of natural sugars? Refined sugar, on the other hand, isn't exactly "natural".

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 09 2017, @03:17PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 09 2017, @03:17PM (#565680)

      Actually what the previous AC said, was: "That guy has a history of talking bullshit, so I'm not going to listen to him because he may be talking bullshit again." Which isn't an unreasonable position to take, as ignoring untrustworthy sources reduces time wasted in fact checking.