Foxon Park, a family-owned soft drinks maker based in East Haven, Connecticut, was featured on Food Network this Saturday. Like an increasing number of regional soft drink makers around the country, Foxon Park chooses to use real sugar over cheaper, formulated sweeteners.
"We could produce our drinks much less expensively using other sweeteners, but we'd never do it," Foxon Park President Anthony Naclerio said: "Sugar is central to our quality and taste - and it's something our customers demand."
Sugar Association President Andy Briscoe said
Foxon Park is part of a larger trend. "Many consumers, in search of an
all natural, quality soft drink, are moving away from lower-priced,
formulated sweetened soft drinks in favor of better-tasting premium
sugar-based regional brands like Foxon Park, Dublin Dr. Pepper, Charlie
O's, Abita Root Beer, Boylan Bottleworks, Cheerwine, among many others."
"These soft drinks owe their popularity to taste, using the best
ingredients - most notably, all-natural sugar instead of cheaper
alternative and artificial sweeteners," Briscoe said. "It's the
soft-drink version of the way microbrews swept through the beer
industry in the 1990s. Consumers are willing to pay more than $1.50 a
bottle plus shipping for these 'micro-colas.' And, via the Internet,
they're ordering them from all over the country delivered to their door
steps."
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