Bad Recipes: New Cokes and Crop Mixes
October 29, 2025 Earlier this year, President Donald Trump made a plea to the Coca-Cola Co. to begin using cane sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) for its popular Coca-Cola brand. And in July, CEO James Quincey announced the company would begin marketing such a Coca-Cola product in select cities across the U.S. later this year.
Naturally, the potential switch from U.S. produced HFCS to cane sugar in the nation’s best-selling soft drink brand does not please the corn growing community. In fact, John Bode, President/CEO at the Corn Refiners Association, recently voiced his displeasure in an interview.
“Replacing HFCS with cane sugar would depress farm prices, and it would add to our trade deficit because every bit of HFCS that is replaced with cane sugar would be imported,” said Bode. “The immediate impact on corn prices, nationally, would be 15 to 34 cents per bushel, a devastating blow to American agriculture.”
If these figures pan out, it would indeed be a devastating blow to U.S. agriculture – especially in a year when so many other factors have worked against grower profitability.
But will they? There is some precedent in history that indicates they could.
For those of you who know me, you may recall that I started my career 40 years ago covering the soft drink market. That’s when Coca-Cola infamously introduced New Coke.
The public backlash to this move was swift and loud. But behind the scenes, another group devastated by New Coke’s launch were vanilla bean growers in Madagascar. You see, original Coca-Cola used a fair amount of vanilla beans in its recipe. New Coke, on the other hand, was more citrus based. Once the switch was announced, vanilla bean growers in Madagascar – which grows approximately 80% of the world’s vanilla beans – saw demand for their crops drop by 30% to 40%.
Following a few months of the outcry, Coca-Cola reversed course and reintroduced Coca-Cola Classic. The public – and vanilla bean growers in Madagascar – were elated.
Is this the scenario that might unfold for corn with a new cane sugar Coke rolling out? The key difference is that in 1985, Coca-Cola replaced ALL of its brand stock with New Coke. This time around, the company is committing to only launching cane sugar Coke in a few cities. So, the replacement of HFCS with cane sugar in the nation’s best-selling soft drink brand won’t be as widespread as it was 40 years ago.
But as always, time will tell . . .
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