Coca-Cola Zero makes Shanghai debut

In our ongoing quest to keep you updated on the sugar free food and beverage options in Shanghai (and to keep with our tradition of posting stories that are "SOOOO interesting"), we thought we'd mention that locally branded Coca-Cola Zero — a sugar free carbonated beverage that "unlike the sugar-free Diet Coke, is formulated to taste like Coca-Cola," according to Wikipedia — started being available in Shanghai grocery stores and convenience stores sometime last week (we think). Coke Zero, which comes in a black can, made its global debut in 2005, and friends in Beijing said they have had it up there since sometime earlier this year.

We thought perhaps Coke Zero (which does taste pretty good, we should add) used Splenda as its sweetener, but according to Coke's website (which doesn't yet list China in its list of locations where Coke Zero is available) the sweetener is something called Ace K. We paid RMB 3.1 for our Coke Zero at an Alldays.

Numerous other imported sugar free soft drinks are available in various Western grocery stores throughout China, but they are at least double the price of the locally branded items. While we're happy to have Coke Zero as another sugar free option in the city, we can't help but think that a Diet Sprite or a Diet 7-Up would make more sense for the local market. We know we would buy it.

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Coca-Cola Zero's Hong Kong website

Photo from Micah Sittig.