Industry & Business

Products sweetened with aspartame are as popular as ever. Recent surveys
conducted by Populus Research Ltd have found that in France, 73% of people
aged 16 and over buy or use one or more products with aspartame and in
Great Britain, that figure rises to 87%.

Populus Research Ltd interviewed a nationally representative
sample of 1,000 people in each country. Participants were asked:

“Which of these products do you buy or use
nowadays?”

In France the categories of products with aspartame that are most widely used are chewing gum (50%) and low calorie colas (36%). Only 27% of the sample said that they did not buy or use any of the products with aspartame that were listed.

In Great Britain, the most widely used products are the leading brand of no added-sugar squash (53%), the leading brand of chewing gum (41%) and the
leading brand of low calorie cola (37%). 13% said that they didn’t use any of a
list of twelve products with aspartame.

In both countries, about one third of people buy or use dairy products with
aspartame. There are, of course, many other products with aspartame
available in France and Great Britain. When these are taken into account, the
proportion of people choosing products with aspartame nowadays will be even
higher.

These results are in line with the growing consumption of low calorie carbonated soft drinks in Western Europe. Data from Canadean show that, since 2006, the market for low calorie carbonates, the leading brands of which are sweetened with aspartame, has grown by over a billion litres. In that same period, consumption of regular carbonates has declined by about the equivalent amount.

Of all the low calorie sweeteners, aspartame is the one that tastes most like
sugar. Aspartame has a pivotal role to play, therefore, in helping food and
drink manufacturers to deliver against commitments to tackle overweight and
obesity. It enables the industry to provide good tasting lower calorie
alternatives that are popular with consumers.