TaB – a Wildly Popular Diet Cola with Suspect Sweeteners

Tab was a diet soft drink produced by The Coca-Cola Company, first introduced in 1963 as one of the first diet colas in history. It was marketed as a low-calorie alternative to regular cola drinks and became popular during the 1970s and 1980s.

The Rise of Diet Drinks

The idea for Tab came about in the late 1950s when Coca-Cola was looking to create a low-calorie soft drink to compete with the growing popularity of diet drinks like Diet-Rite Cola. The company’s research and development team came up with a formula that used saccharin as a sweetener instead of sugar, which allowed them to create a drink with zero calories.

Early Diet Drinks

Here are a few of the earliest diet soft drinks:

No-Cal: This diet soda was introduced by the Kirsch Bottling Company in 1952 and was sweetened with cyclamate.

Diet Rite: Introduced by the Royal Crown Cola Company in 1958, Diet Rite was the first diet soda to use a sugar substitute called cyclamate instead of sugar.

Tab: Introduced by The Coca-Cola Company in 1963, Tab was one of the first diet colas to gain widespread popularity. It was sweetened with saccharin.

Tab: Introduced by The Coca-Cola Company in 1963, Tab was one of the first diet colas to gain widespread popularity. It was sweetened with saccharin.

Fresca: This citrus-flavored diet soda was introduced by Coca-Cola in 1966 and was sweetened with saccharin.

Diet Pepsi: Introduced by PepsiCo in 1964.

TaB Marketing

Tab was first test marketed in 1963 in the cities of Atlanta, Georgia, and Wilmington, Delaware. The initial response was positive, and Coca-Cola began to roll out the drink to other markets. The company marketed Tab as a drink for women, with ads featuring slim, fashionable women drinking the beverage.

In the 1970s, Tab’s popularity grew, and it became one of the most popular diet drinks in the United States. The company continued to market the drink to women, with ads featuring slogans like “Be a Tabber, not a chubber” and “It’s a beautiful drink for beautiful people.” Tab’s popularity even led to the creation of Tab Energy, a caffeine-infused version of the drink.

Health Concerns for Some Sweeteners

In that timeframe, there had been health studies on artificial sweeteners. Some showed high incidences of bladder cancer in rats given large doses of cyclamates or saccharine. Subsequent studies differed, indicating that normal doses to humans – at least of saccharine – did not indicate bladder cancer. Although saccharin and was ultimately declared safe, cyclamates remain banned in the United States. Nevertheless, since these artificial sweeteners had been associated with health concerns, consumers were looking for alternatives.

Introduction of Diet Coke

Coca-Cola introduced Diet Coke in 1982 as a replacement for Tab, which was losing market share to other diet sodas, including Diet Pepsi.

One reason Coca-Cola moved to Diet Coke was that it used a newer artificial sweetener called aspartame, which had a cleaner taste and was considered safer by some consumers. Additionally, Coca-Cola wanted to distance itself from the negative associations that Tab had with being a “diet drink for women.”

Diet Coke is sweetened with a blend of aspartame and acesulfame potassium (Ace-K), which is also an artificial sweetener. The combination of these two sweeteners is used to achieve a taste that is similar to regular Coca-Cola without the calories from sugar. The use of aspartame and Ace-K has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as safe for consumption, and they are commonly used in many other diet beverages and foods.

TaB Pushed Aside

Sales for Tab had peaked in the early 1980s. Tab had become one of the most popular diet sodas in the United States. Many people preferred its unique taste and zero-calorie formula. However, as more diet soda options became available, sales of Tab began to decline, and the brand lost market share to competitors like Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi. The Coca-Cola Company began to shift its focus to these other diet soda brands, and by the early 2000s. Tab may still be available today, but in limited quantities and not in the original formula.