Europe’s fizzy drink makers are plotting a quiet revolution over what goes into your cola and lemonade.

New rules next year will allow companies to start sweetening beverages with syrupy isoglucose, which is around 30 percent cheaper than crystal sugar.

The big question is whether the public will stand for it. Beyond fears about a change in taste, the switch to isoglucose risks pushing Europe into a brutal catfight over whether isoglucose, or high fructose corn syrup, is less healthy than regular sugar and more likely to cause obesity. The sugar industry used to make such claims in the U.S., but many scientists now refute the idea.

POLITICO contacted a number of leading brands about whether they had plans to replace sugar with isoglucose in any of their recipes. Suntory Group, which owns the brands Orangina Schweppes, Oasis, La Casera, Lucozade, Ribena and Dr Pepper, said it preferred not to comment.

A spokesperson for Coca-Cola said the company already uses isoglucose in a number of products in Europe and could not say whether it had plans to increase that share. “In Germany, there are currently no plans to switch to isoglucose,” the Coke spokesman said, adding that the company “offers different product recipes in the different countries,” in which the group is active. In the Czech Republic, Sprite (a Coca-Cola product) and Pepsi Cola are already sweetened with isoglucose instead of sugar.

Several companies referred inquiries to Jamie Fortescue, director of Starch Europe, which represents European isoglucose makers. He predicted that the sweetener’s market share could grow from 5 percent today to 20 percent in a couple of years, based on similar experiences in Japan. The European Commission forecast a threefold increase in isoglucose production in Europe from 0.7 million metric tons to 2.3 million metric tons.

Taste the difference

If further evidence were required that food and drink companies are quietly testing isoglucose, some 500 have this year been to the test center set up by Cargill, the multinational agro-industrial giant.

Cargill has built a tasting room at its main European R&D site in Vilvoorde, 12 kilometers outside Brussels, where soft drink makers can test their own products in two versions: one sweetened with sugar and a reformulated version sweetened with isoglucose.

Upon arrival at the test center, prospective customers are first shown a corporate video with graphs illustrating the different steps of isoglucose production: Corn or wheat starch is first broken up with enzymes to crack the long molecule chains into smaller hydrocarbons, much like bodies digesting carbs. Those are then turned into glucose and fructose, the two components of table sugar.

While table sugar is made of glucose and fructose linked in a 50/50 ratio, isoglucose contains varying amounts of the two molecules, usually around 40 percent of fructose and 60 percent of glucose. This ratio was found to better mimic the taste of table sugar than a 50/50 ratio, said Cargill’s drinks expert Reginald van Bokkelen.

The argument that isoglucose tastes just like sugar is crucial to convincing potential clients: “No company will risk switching sweeteners without tasting,” van Bokkelen said.

This proved to be an emotive issue in the U.S., where Mexican Coca-Cola developed a strong fan base because it used crystal sugar.

Because of this sensitivity, the tasting room is the central element of the sales process.

A long row of tables, separated by panels, is lined up against a wooden wall with an opening through which an employee hands out trays with three identical small plastic cups with soda. The room is sparsely lit with red bulbs, like those in a photographic darkroom, so that testers are not influenced by possible variations in the drinks’ colors.

Overall, this reporter found the sweeteners to taste almost identical, with the isoglucose being slightly fruitier and tangier. Mostly, he couldn’t tell them apart. That’s exactly the desired effect on potential customers: If you have a sweetener that is chemically almost identical to sugar, costs 30 percent less and that tastes the same, why stick with the expensive crystals made from beets or cane?

Van Bokkelen said he was welcoming more and more visitors as the advent of new rules nears. In October 2017, the EU will lift a cap on isoglucose which banned companies from producing more than 0.7 million metric tons of syrup. The liberalization comes with the end of the EU’s sugar quota system, which has been in place since the 1960s and made life easy for sugar producers, by guaranteeing beet prices and production quotas.

Just not the same

Sugar makers apprehend the change, but there’s not much they can do. Marie-Christine Ribera, head of the European Committee of Sugar Manufacturers, said: “We are worried. Isoglucose is a direct competitor.”

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But she wouldn’t publicly criticize isoglucose, and it is easy to see why doing so could backfire.

When isoglucose hit the market in America, sugar makers launched a campaign denouncing the negative health effects of the new sweetener.

“The American sucrose industry fought introduction of high fructose corn syrup,” said John Bode, president and CEO of the U.S. Corn Refiners Association, warning that “the competition between the two market segments became so ferocious that fighting with one another took precedence over recognizing the destructive effect of that fight.”

This led to a public debate around the negative health effects of sweeteners in sodas and triggered new policies such as the sugar tax.

Sugar makers in Europe realize that they have nothing to win from a similar debate, which is why they met with representatives of the starch industry to make a peace deal of sorts: “We have worked together and we have common messages. We want to avoid a debate like in the United States” Ribera said, echoing a view also expressed by Fortescue. Ribera even conceded that “the debate on the health of isoglucose is only marketing.”

But she couldn’t deny herself a little dig at the new pretenders: “Our product is natural, it’s extracted from a plant by mechanical means. Isoglucose is a bit more … complicated.” Prompted to elaborate, she said: “People should know that isoglucose doesn’t taste the same.”