Use as soda sweetener may raise corn prices

Consider the multitude of products produced from corn: industrial products, animal feeds, food products for humans, not the least of which are high-fructose corn sweeteners, which will now, depending on which soft drink you prefer and where it is bottled, comprise up to 100% of the sugar that was once part of the cola generation's daily sugar dose.

On Nov. 6 both the Coca-Cola Co. and PepsiCo, which comprise two-thirds of the soft-drink industry, gave approval for 100% replacement of sugar with corn sweeteners. This event, already taken by the smaller "other" soft-drink companies, merely completed the process that has been going along for some time, because of the substantial price differentials between sugar and corn sweeteners.

Coke and Pepsi, two companies heavily involved with consumer market testing before any change, took the plunge in incremental amounts. Bottlers in the spring of 1983 were first given the option of using a 50% sugar replacement. By early 1984 Coke, pleased with the results, determined to up the ante: 75% maximum use in bottled drinks and 100% in fountain markets.

Analysts are predicting some longer-term changes for both the corn markets and the corn wet milling industry as a result of these actions.

Corn producers and prices have ridden quite a roller-coaster over the last few years. Supplies were sharply down in 1983 because of a disastrous drought that had many people wondering whether stocks could hold out to the following harvest. Prices went sharply higher, and many of the laggards to market trends, who needed supplies, found themselves priced out of the market.

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