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    A sweetened cola war gets underway

    By SHOOTUpdated:No Comments885 Views
    This product image provided by PepsiCo Inc. shows the company's new product, Pepsi True. (AP Photo/PepsiCo)

    By Candice Choi, Food Industry Writer

    NEW YORK (AP) --

    Coke and Pepsi are squaring off again, this time with natural sweeteners.

    PepsiCo said Wednesday it plans to roll out a reduced-calorie version of its namesake soda made with sugar and stevia, a natural sweetener. Pepsi True will be sold on Amazon.com later this month before rolling out more broadly.

    Meanwhile, rival Coca-Cola is testing Coca-Cola Life, which is also made with a mix of sugar and stevia and has fewer calories than its regular soda. That drink is expected to hit markets nationally by November.

    As Americans keep cutting back on soda, the two beverage giants are hoping they can win back customers by addressing concerns about the high fructose corn syrup in regular soda as well as the artificial sweeteners in diet sodas.

    Executives have pushed to come up with formulas with fewer calories using natural sweeteners. But the bitter aftertaste of some natural sweeteners like stevia has made that a challenge. The solution so far has been to mix it with sugar — and therefore, some calories.

    The quest to come up with new formulas has intensified recently as sales of diet sodas have declined at even steeper rates than their full-calorie counterparts. Coke and Pepsi executives have blamed the trend on worries about artificial sweeteners like aspartame, which have no calories but are seen as processed and fake.

    Simon Lowden, chief marketing officer for PepsiCo's North American beverage unit, noted in a phone interview that people are no longer focusing on calories alone, but also taking into account whether a product uses artificial ingredients.

    Pepsi True will come in 7.5-ounce cans, each with 60 calories. Coca-Cola Life, which is being test-marketed at select locations in the southeastern U.S, comes in 8-ounce glass bottles, each with 60 calories as well.

    Ali Dibadj, a Bernstein analyst, said in a note Wednesday that interviews with store managers indicated sales of Coca-Cola Life so far seem "satisfactory."

    Both Coke and Pepsi have sold midcalorie versions of their flagship sodas in the past, but those were made with different sweeteners. In 2012, PepsiCo also rolled out Pepsi Next, which has about half the calories of regular Pepsi.

    Pepsi Next, which is still on shelves, is made with a mix of three artificial sweeteners and high fructose corn syrup. Lowden said he imagines Pepsi Next, which hasn't been performing strongly, will eventually be phased out in the U.S.

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    Tags:Coca-ColaPepsi



    As the world rediscovers “The Odyssey,” disabled actors in Greece explore the pain of war

    Sunday, August 9, 2026
    From left to right, Eirini Kourouvani, a wheelchair dancer, Evi Saoulidou and Lydia Fotopoulou perform during a dress rehearsal of Euripides' tragedy The Trojan Women, staged by the National Theatre of Greece, at the Ancient Theater of Epidaurus, Greece, on Thursday, July 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

    As Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey" renews global fascination with Homer, a cast of disabled and non-disabled performers in Greece is staging the war's other story.

    It's not about the triumph of returning heroes, but the suffering they left behind.

    "The Trojan Women," with a cast of 22, was staged at Epidaurus, the ancient open-air stone arena in southern Greece. It marked what organizers called the first fully accessible performance in the ancient theater's 2,300-year history.

    While Homer followed warriors sailing home from Troy, the playwright Euripides — writing some three centuries later — turned to the city's ruins and its women, forced into exile and enslavement.

    The ancient theater offered a full range of accessibility services for the Aug. 2 performance. Blind audience members received Braille programs, tactile models and live audio description, while deaf spectators followed overhead titles. Physical adaptations also improved access throughout the site.

    "It's the first time a performance at Ancient Epidaurus has been made accessible to everyone," said Greg Polychronidis, a Paralympic gold medalist who attended the event. "Today was a celebration of equality and it should serve as an example for everyone, forever."

    For many of the performers, standing on the ancient stage was itself part of the message: a voice for those often overlooked. Eirini Kourouvani, a 58-year-old cast member who uses a wheelchair, had never set foot inside the theater before.

    "It is just grand," she said. "I feel my heart opening up as wide as this theater is."

    Ioanna-Maria Gertsou, a blind psychologist, attended with Babu, her guide dog.

    "We too have the right to attend performances on an equal footing," she said,... Read More

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