Coca-Cola and Pepsi modifies formula

Coca-Cola and Pepsi are altering their formulas in the Unites States due to California law that authorizes drinks containing a definite level of carcinogens bear a cancer warning label.

The firms said the modifications to the way they compose the caramel coloring will be extended in the US to reorganize their manufacturing methods. The changes have already been made for drinks sold in California. It has not altered the formula in Britain or Europe until now.

Coca-Cola and PepsiCo description for approximately 90% of the soda market, according to industry follower Beverage Digest. A spokesman for Dr Pepper Snapple Group Inc. was not right now available for any remarks.

The American Beverage Association, which symbolizes the greater industry, said its member corporation will carry on to use caramel coloring in certain products but that changes were made to fulfill California's new standard.

"Customers will observe no distinction in our products and have no cause at all for any health concerns," the association stated in a statement.

A spokesman for Coca-Cola, Diana Garza-Ciarlante, said the company instructed its caramel suppliers to change their manufacturing procedure to decrease the levels of the chemical 4-methylimidazole, which can be formed during the cooking process and consequently may be found in trace amounts in numerous foods.

"While we consider that there is no mass health risk that validates any such modification, we did ask our caramel suppliers to take this move so that our products would not be subject to the prerequisite systematically unfounded warning," Garza-Giarlante said in an email.

The Centre for Science in the Public Interest, a customer advocacy group, in February filed a case with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to ban the use of ammonia-sulphite caramel coloring.

A representative for the Food and Drug Administration said the petition is being evaluated.

But he noted that a customer would have to drink in excess of 1,000 cans of soda a day to reach the doses administered that have appeared association to cancer in rodents.

The American Beverage Association noted that California further said the coloring to its list of carcinogens with no studies showing that it causes cancer in humans. It noted that the listing was on the basis of a sole study in lab mice and rats