The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has just warned Coca-Cola that is should revise the label on a version of its Diet Coke brand containing vitamins and minerals, stating that the beverage giant makes inappropriate nutritional claims, according to a warning later posted on the agency's Web site On Tuesday.

 

Basically, the FDA says that Diet Coke Plus does not contain enough nutrients to qualify for use of the world “Plus.” Foods may use that name only if they contain at least 10 percent more of the reference daily intake or daily reference value of a nutrient than a similar product. Furthermore, the agency said that there's a longstanding rule under which it's not appropriate to fortify snack foods such as carbonated beverages.

 

The warning letter, sent to The Coca-Cola Company on December 10, comes as a growing number of nutrient-enhanced beverages have appeared on store shelves, putting pressure on the FDA to police more aggressively the claims many of the products make about the benefits they can bring.

 

However, Coke isn't the only company to add nutrients to a soft drink, as Cadbury made a fortified version of 7UP and Pepsi is currently selling Diet Pepsi Max. The FDA asked Coke to take prompt actions and the agency expects a response to its letter within 15 days of receipt of the letter.

 

As for Coke's side, the company said it will respond to the FDA in early January, but it announced that it has no plans to change the label. Coca-Cola launched Diet Coke Plus in March 2007, selling the equivalent of 10.2 million 8-ounce cases in 2007, compared with 990 million 8-ounce cases of Diet Coke that year.