Bubbly bonanza

Pep up the new year with natural sodas and sparkling juices

By Nancy Schatz Alton

December 31, 2007

Seattle’s historic Pioneer Square district is home to one of the latest innovations in the carbonated-beverage industry: Dry Soda’s tasting room. Inside, bright orange walls indicate the flavor of Kumquat Dry Soda. Patrons unsure of flavor choices — including Kumquat, Lavender, Rhubarb, or Lemongrass — peruse a food-pairing sign above a silver bar. Lavender’s floral tones enhance chocolate, the sign says, while the lush fruit flavor of Rhubarb works well with winter vegetables.

This culinary beverage aims to “be a very sophisticated version of what we think of as soda,” says Dry Soda founder and president Sharelle Klaus, who launched her line of drinks in August 2005. While dining out during her four pregnancies, Klaus felt left out in the beverage department. She found sparkling juices and traditional sodas too sweet, and she missed pairing wine with food.

The subtle Dry Soda is just one of numerous natural carbonated beverages to hit the market within the last five years or so. These drinks are hard to categorize. Some fall under the sparkling-juices label. Others are likened to traditional carbonated soft drinks, such as Coke and Pepsi, but are called “natural sodas”; the beverage industry pours these into its “premium drink” category.

The tasting room at Dry Soda in Seattle.

In 2006, the overall U.S. soda market captured nearly $49 billion wholesale, while the premium-soda market made $270 million and the juice category garnered $130 million. There are no breakout numbers for either natural sodas or sparkling juices (the latter falls into the juice category), making progress difficult to track.

By contrast, traditional carbonated soft-drink sales are carefully measured. Despite their strong market share and billions in revenue, sales volumes for sodas are shrinking. In 2006, carbonated soft-drink sale volumes fell 1.1 percent, according to the Beverage Marketing Corporation. The first decline in the previous 20 years of soda sales was noted in 2005. That year, Beverage Digest reported, Coca-Cola Classic sales volumes fell 2 percent and Original Pepsi fell 3.2 percent. Even diet-soda sales are stagnating, with Diet Pepsi losing 1.9 percent in volume in 2005 and Diet Coke only growing 0.1 percent.

Some experts say that the decline in the traditional soda industry is a good omen for natural sodas and sparkling juices. Of course, alternative sodas and sparkling juices have been around for some time. Boylan has been making its soda since 1891. Martinelli’s introduced the first non-alcoholic apple cider after World War I. Snapple — named for the company’s carbonated apple soda — was born in 1972. Hansen’s natural sodas also debuted in the 1970s. Welch’s launched sparkling grape juice in 1982 and Blue Sky soda pop quickly followed in 1983. R.W. Knudsen’s Fruit Spritzers were also created in the 1980s. And in 1996, Jones Soda began selling six brands of soft drink.

So what makes the launch of numerous new-but-similar products noteworthy? In a phrase: high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), a processed sweetener that’s the industry standard for soda pop. People looking for the fizz and flavor of soft drinks without the controversy of HFCS are turning away from mainstream brands and picking up bottles of natural soda instead.

Traditional sodas are sweetened with HFCS instead of cane sugar. The reasons for this are mainly economic: Sugar costs about $2.80 a pound, while HFCS runs a mere 40 cents a pound, says Mark Seiler, the president of natural-soda company Maine Root.

The health aspects of HFCS are fiercely debated. The syrup is made from corn, which is a highly subsidized crop; HFCS research is therefore a political issue. It’s also a scientific issue; as clinical nutritionist Nancy Appleton has contended, HFCS is processed by the body differently than sugar. “Because it is metabolized by the liver, fructose does not cause the pancreas to release insulin the way it normally does,” Appleton has written. “Fructose converts to fat more than any other sugar. This may be one of the reasons Americans continue to get fatter.” A recent study also found that drinks made with HFCS may contribute to diabetes, especially in children.

The debate surrounding HFCS has helped fuel a desire for healthier options and mainstreamed some alternative drinks, which are now sold at chain stores such as Safeway and Costco. In recent years, school districts began pulling Coke and Pepsi machines from their lunchrooms, sometimes awarding beverage contracts to sparkling-juice manufacturers. Niche products have gained buyers thanks to retailers such as Whole Foods, Starbucks, and Wild Oats, says Steve Hersh, the co-founder and president of GuS sodas. Coke and Pepsi aren’t even for sale at Whole Foods or Wild Oats. GuS soda — which stands for Grown-Up Soda — garners more shelf space than 7-Up at Wegmans, a traditional supermarket on the East Coast.

GuS drinks come in several flavors.

“Consumers have educated themselves,” says Hersh. “Five, 10 years ago, people weren’t so ingredient-conscious. [Now] they have a heightened awareness about high-fructose corn syrup, preservatives, aspartame, and artificial sweeteners.”

While some scientists agree with clinical nutritionist Appleton, others say it doesn’t matter whether this claim is true. In What to Eat, nutritionist Marion Nestle writes, “If corn sweeteners have anything to do with obesity, it is surely because processed foods are loaded with them and lots of people are eating more of such foods . . . The food supply now provides an average of 200 calories per person per day from the high-fructose corn syrup in soft drinks alone.”

Some consumers are making drink choices based on HFCS, but others are shying away from diet soda for similar health reasons. A 2005 study found that for each can of diet soft drink consumed per day, the risk of obesity went up by 41 percent. And a traditional soda — regular or diet — usually contains chemicals such as phosphorus, a strong acid that can actually clean metal and also robs the body of calcium. Diet sodas contain artificial sweeteners such as aspartame, acesulfame-K, and sucralose (also known as Splenda). While nutritionist Nestle believes aspartame and sucralose are safe in small doses, in What to Eat she writes that she tends “to be uncomfortable with artificial anything when it comes to food.”

But that doesn’t mean the alternative sodas and sparkling juices lining store shelves across the U.S. should go unscrutinized. Blue Sky Natural Soda, for example, contains high-fructose corn sweeteners, just like conventional soda. Hansen’s natural sodas also include HFCS, while the company’s diet sodas contain Splenda. And Jones Soda just switched over to using pure cane sugar in its sodas.

Sugar is a natural substance, but it lacks any nutritional value. Some sparkling juices and natural sodas gain all their sweetness from fruit juice instead of cane sugar or HFCS. Some products claim to count as one full serving of fruit. But that serving of fruit lacks the nutrients associated with eating the actual fruit, such as fiber. And fruit juice still has calories — sometimes quite a lot.