Gatorade to remove controversial ingredient
NEW YORK (KTNV / AP) -- PepsiCo Inc. is removing a controversial ingredient from its Gatorade sports drink following customer complaints.
A spokeswoman for the company, Molly Carter, says the move was in the works for the past year after the company began "hearing rumblings" from consumers about the ingredient. She said it wasn't a response to a recent petition on Change.org by a Mississippi teenager.
That petition noted that the ingredient, brominated vegetable oil, has been patented as a flame retardant and is banned in Japan and the European Union. The petition had more than 200,000 supporters Friday.
Carter said the ingredient is still used in other PepsiCo drinks, such as Mountain Dew. PepsiCo's decision to remove the ingredient from Gatorade was first reported by the industry tracker Beverage Digest.
According to Gatorade's website, brominated vegetable oil is widely used by beverage makers to help keep flavoring oils well-blended. Since oil does not mix well with water, emulsifiers help dissolve and keep the flavor oils evenly distributed throughout the beverage. Brominated vegetable oil is used in very low levels in the production of select flavors of Gatorade.
Related Story: PepsiCo to take controversial ingredient out of Gatorade
Related Story: Gatorade to remove controversial ingredient
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