Diet Coke or Diet Coca-Cola is a sugar-free soft drink produced and distributed by The Coca-Cola Company. It was introduced in the United States in July 1982, and was the first new brand since 1886 to use the Coca-Cola trademark. The product quickly overtook Tab in sales. In most non-English-speaking markets it is called Coca-Cola Light, Coke Light or Coke Lite. Outside Northern America and U.S. territories, Diet Coke was the successor to TaB.
Diet Coke was sweetened with aspartame as soon as it became available in the U.S., 1983; however, to save money, this was originally in a blend with saccharin. After Diet Rite cola advertised its 100 percent use of aspartame, and the manufacturer of NutraSweet (then, G.D. Searle & Company) warned that the NutraSweet trademark would not be made available to a blend of sweeteners, Coca-Cola switched the formula to 100 percent NutraSweet, later switching back and doing without the NutraSweet trademark. Diet Coke from fountain dispensers still contains some saccharin (to extend shelf life)[1].
In other countries, where cyclamates were not banned, as they were in the U.S. and the United Kingdom in 1970, Diet Coke or Coca-Cola Light may be sweetened with a blend containing cyclamates, aspartame, and acesulfame potassium. Fans of the drink often express a strong preference for either the European formula or the American-British-Canadian version. Contrary to some reports, Coca-Cola Zero is not the European Coca-Cola Light formula.
In 2005, under pressure from retailer Wal-Mart (which was impressed with the popularity of Splenda sweetener), and despite their previous blunder with New Coke, the company released a new formulation called "Diet Coke sweetened with Splenda". Sucralose replaces aspartame in this version. Early sales reports for this version were not quite as strong as anticipated; however, Coca-Cola did little advertising for the brand, investing money and advertising in Coca-Cola Zero instead. The introduction of the Splenda sweetened version of Diet Coke saw complaints to bottlers, as store shelves would often go with very little of the normal version of Diet Coke.
Diet Coke does not utilize a modified form of the Coca-Cola recipe but is instead an entirely different formula. The controversial New Coke, introduced in 1985, used a version of the Diet Coke recipe that contained high fructose corn syrup and had a slightly different balance of ingredients. In 2004 Coca-Cola introduced Coca-Cola C2, which it claims tastes much closer to Coca-Cola but contains half the carbohydrates.
When Tab was released in 1963, the Coca-Cola Company refused to use the Coca-Cola brandname, fearing that its flagship brand might suffer by being used on another product, the long-term viability of which was uncertain. (Ironically, Tab is still available today, even though vastly outweighed by Diet Coke.) Its rival Pepsi had no such qualms, and after the long-term success of its sugar-free brand Diet Pepsi, launched in 1964, became clear, Coca-Cola decided to launch a new sugar-free brand under the Coca-Cola name to compete with Diet Pepsi. With the well-known name, it could be marketed more extensively than the more anonymously dubbed Tab.
Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi have capitalized on the markets of people who require low sugar regimens, such as diabetics and people with other health conditions, athletes, and people who want to lose weight. In the UK, a 330 ml can of Diet Coke contains around 1.3 Calories (5 kilojoules) compared to 142 Calories (595 kJ) for a regular can of Coca-Cola.
According to the company's UK website as of 2004:
Diet Coke is the #1 selling sugar-free soda in the world;
Diet Coke is the third-largest brand at the company, and the fourth most-popular carbonated soft drink in the world;
Diet Coke is sold in 149 countries; in 46 of them, where diet has undesirable connotations, it is known as Coca-Cola Light;
The top five markets for the brand are the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, and Brazil.
Some predict that Diet Coke will soon overtake Pepsi and Coca-Cola as the #1 soft drink in the USA because, over the last decade, both Pepsi and Coca-Cola Classic had lost market share and Diet Coke has gained market share (up to 9.8% in 2005)
