Coke and Pepsi drop controversial ingredient BVO from all drinks
Coca-Cola and PepsiCo said on 5 May 2014 they’re working to remove a controversial ingredient, brominated vegetable oil (BVO), from all their drinks, including Mountain Dew, Fanta and Powerade, following petitions on the website Change.org by a 17-year-old Mississippi teenager who wanted it out of PepsiCo’s Gatorade and Coca-Cola’s Powerade.
Health concerns about BVO stem from its use of bromide, the element found in brominated flame retardants, according to the Mayo Clinic. BVO has been linked to negative health effects, including reports of memory loss and skin and nerve problems.
In her petitions, which drew several hundreds of thousands of signatures, Sarah Kavanagh noted that the ingredient has been patented as a flame retardant and isn’t approved for use in Japan and the European Union.
Coca-Cola and PepsiCo insisted on the safety of the additive, which is used to distribute flavours more evenly in fruit-flavoured drinks. But, as media say, their decisions reflect the pressure companies are facing as people pay closer attention to ingredient labels.
In January 2013, PepsiCo announced that it would replace BVO with sucrose acetate isobutyrate in Gatorade, but it continues to use it in some varieties of Mountain Dew and Amp Energy. On 5 May 2014 the company said it has since been working to remove it from the rest of its products.
PepsiCo, though, didn’t provide a timeline for when it expects the removal to be complete.
Also on 5 May 2014 Coca-Cola said that it’s removing BVO from all its drinks to be consistent in the ingredients it uses around the world. In addition to Powerade, Coca-Cola uses BVO in some flavours of Fanta, Fresca and several citrus-flavoured fountain drinks. The company said BVO should be phased out in the U.S. by the end of the year.
Coca-Cola said it would instead use sucrose acetate isobutyrate, which it noted has been used in drinks for more than 14 years, and glycerol ester of rosin, which it said is commonly found in chewing gum and drinks.
The Centre for Science in the Public Interest, a health advocacy group, points out that the Food and Drug Administration permitted the use of BVO on an interim basis in 1970 pending additional study. Decades later, the group notes that BVO is still on the interim list. However, drinks companies are allowed to use BVO at up to 15 parts per million.
