Corn syrup tries to sweeten its image
High-fructose corn syrup has been taking heat as a possible cause for the obesity epidemic, so producers are investing in building a more natural reputation for the sweetener. Jill Barshay reports.
SweetSurprise.com is just one element of the Corn Refiners Association's campaign to counter the bad publicity surrounding high-fructose corn syrup. (SweetSurprise.com)
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Tess Vigeland: Corn's price is popping, even more so now because of the flooding of farmlands throughout the corn belt.
Today, agribusiness giant Bunge bought a company called Corn Products International for $4.4 billion in stock. One of CPI's biggest products is high-fructose corn syrup which the company sells to drink purveyors like Coca-Cola and food processors including Kellogg, Unilever and Nestle.
There's a lot of concern about how healthy this sweetener is. Today, the corn syrup lobby launched a new marketing campaign.
Marketplace's Jill Barshay reports.
Jill Barshay: American newspaper readers got a first glimpse of a really corny marketing campaign this morning: full page ads of a big yellow corn on the cob surrounded by bright green leaves. The companies that make corn syrup want to convince Americans that their sweetener is as natural as sugar or honey.
Tom Pirko: It's an uphill battle.
That's Tom Pirko, president of BevMark. He advises big users of corn syrup like Coke and Pepsi.
Pirko: We are dealing with an epidemic of obesity and high-fructose corn syrup is one of the major fattening agents in our culture.
Pirko says corn syrup producers are battling health groups and nutritionists who are demonizing the sweetener.
Audrae Erickson is the president of the Corn Refiners Association. She's directing the 18-month marketing campaign that'll hit our TVs and Internet screens in the next few weeks.
Audrae Erickson: There will be a particular focus on magazines targeted at moms given their important role in preparing and buying foods for their families.
American moms aren't buying corn syrup directly, but they are reading ingredient labels and they've been buying fewer products made with corn syrup over the past year.
The Wall Street Journal says the corn refiners are spending as much as $30 million dollars to win moms over, but BevMark's Pirko says it's not just the health concerns of American shoppers that corn syrup makers should be worried about.
Pirko: They're just getting strangled by the prices. The price is going up, up, up, but getting higher prices on the shelf is becoming very difficult as consumers have less and less disposable income.
Pirko says as the price of corn and corn syrup rises, many food processors are looking for cheaper substitutes.
In New York, I'm Jill Barshay for Marketplace.
Comments
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From Atlanta, GA, 08/23/2008
I've been reading with relish...heh, heh...the great debate of corn syrup vs. high frutose corn syrup (HFCS) and I'm horribly confused.
Sugar in general is an empty calorie product but also a necessary ingredient to life itself. Whether it comes naturally from fruits and vegetables or wherever, sugar is sugar. Just ask any diabetic. Too much sugar is not a good thing but I suppose less harmful if taken via the fruit and vegetable route.
From what I am gathering, the process of manufacturing HFCS and the frutose to glucose ratio and how they are bonded, is the real culprit here; but the actual question of "is corn syrup itself bad for you?" never really gets addressed.
Of course an over abundance of sweets in general, whether it be organic honey or cane sugar, is not a good thing but is the occasional dollop of pure corn syrup any worse or better for you than sugar, honey or maple syrup?
As an aside, I'm 63 and in damn good health but was a bottle fed with a homemade formula of..get this, evaporated milk and corn syrup.
From spring, TX, 07/14/2008
Corn syrup is BAD for you the only study that was performed on it did not study both part of the fake sugars blended ingredients frutose and glutose together.
07/07/2008
Darnit-all Deb! They heard you...... You have alot of pull. Please start writing articles aimed at my husband to stop washing my bras in the hot loads. I think you can get through to him.
From Seattle, WA, 06/25/2008
Oh wow.
In early may, I wrote a tongue-in-cheek piece about how high fructose corn syrup needed to undergo a re-branding campaign to transform its image. Following in the footsteps of sugar becoming "organic evaporated cane juice" I decided HFCS would become "fructose-infused zea mays nectar." I made a fake ad for it and everything.
And now this story. Oh wow. I hope I didn't give them any ideas.
My original piece, by the way, is here:
http://ruse-by-any-other-name.seattlelocalfood.com
From austin, TX, 06/24/2008
"A big yellow corn on the cob"? How illustrative of the distance most of America has come from the source of its food when a presumably educated reporter doesn't know that it is an EAR of corn! Good grief.
From Irvine, CA, 06/24/2008
We each get to choose what goes into our bodies. There are more 100% juice products on the market than ever. A piece of Fruit has healthier simple sugars and 100% natural packaging ! ADM & Corn Products are the same as GM & Ford trying to sell us gas guzzlers. No matter how you dress it up you're still trying to make an elephant fly.
BTW Robert may want to class up his comments, his view of product placement was bad for me.
jmride.blogspot.com
From Philadelphia, PA, 06/24/2008
There is no moderation with corn syrup...it is in most all cereals....candies...cookies....crackers...drinks....much that is processed! We are eating and drinking a tremendous amount of corn syrup in our foods...this is a sugar....our bodies are overworked trying to distribute the excess sugar....and becoming unhealthy because of it!
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