Even as the World Health Organization (WHO) intensifies its global lobby for a sharp reduction in the sugar content of popular soft drinks on health grounds, the regional soda industry is seizing hold of the issue as a selling point for its own sugar-based beverages, through claims that they have moved to reduce sugar levels in their products.
Last week, two of the region’s major beverage companies, Trinidad and Tobago’s S.M Jaleel, the manufacturer of Busta, widely sold across the region and the Jamaican company WYNSYNCO Group which distributes its own BIGGA brand and also bottles for Coca Cola laid competing claims to being ‘top of the pile’ as far as reducing sugar content in soft drinks is concerned.
The Busta manufacturers claim that it has now positioned itself ahead of its regional rivals on account of having reduced its sugar content by 25% in each bottle of soda. But the WYSYNCO Group quickly retorted that its own BIGGA had made an even more significant cut in sugar content, a claim which it advertised widely on social media.