Last week, Coca-Cola disclosed in its annual report that its supply chain had been disrupted, due to the coronavirus. Many of the artificial sweeteners the company uses in its diet and zero-sugar drinks come from a supplier in China, and the spread of the virus has affected production as well as exports. Should the virus continue to spread, the sugar alternatives used by Coca-Cola could be in even shorter supply.
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Coca-Cola wrote in the report, “We have initiated contingency supply plans and do not foresee a short-term impact due to these delays. However, we may see tighter supplies of some of these ingredients in the longer term should production or export operations in China deteriorate."
The company listed sucralose as a “critical raw material” in production, sourced from both the United States and China. Other primary artificial sweeteners used by Coca-Cola include aspartame, acesulfame potassium, sucralose, saccharin, cyclamate and steviol gylcosides.
For unit case volume, China is the company’s third-largest market. According to company estimates, the virus could affect case volume by 2 to 3 percentage points, organic revenue by 1 to 2 percentage points and first-quarter earnings-per-share by 1 to 2 cents.
In a statement, Coca-Cola officials said, “The safety and health of the company's associates remains a high priority. The company has implemented precautionary measures to protect employees in China, which includes providing face masks and hand sanitizers; installing temperature screening in offices and manufacturing facilities; and setting up health monitoring mechanisms across the Coca-Cola system in China."
In a recent study analyzing data from 451,743 people from 10 countries over 20 years, researchers found that those who drank artificially sweetened drinks suffered a higher all-cause mortality — specifically from circulatory disease — while those drinking sugar sweetened drinks had a higher risk of death from digestive disease.
There’s no shortcut to removing processed sugar from your diet. Artificial sweeteners certainly aren’t the lesser of two evils. To learn more, read, “Artificially Sweetened Drinks Can Lead to an Early Grave.”