Giant coffee company Starbucks has released the complete list of Pumpkin Spice Latte's ingredients in its blog, August 17.
Last year PSL drinkers showed outrage on social media as a food blogger Vani Hari revealed on her page, Food Babe, that PSLs do not really have pumpkin in them and that the bestseller drink actually contained caramel coloring that is not good for the health.
Starbucks spokesperson clarified in an email that the reformulation of the pumpkin latte was a result of the company's decision to respond to customers and partners in providing the best beverage they can serve and had completely nothing to do with Food Babe's blog post, as reported by Boston.Com.
Fortune reported that Espresso Americas' Director for Brand Management Peter Dukes said that upon hearing from customers on the ingredients of PSL, they took another look at the beverage and the reason why they created it so many years ago.
Such reformulation and public disclosure of the beverage's ingredients may have also been used as a marketing strategy to increase Starbucks Corp.'s profit as the ongoing trend of people paying more attention to their food and beverage intake continues to rise these days.
Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz said that the company's sales show that despite the emulation by other companies of their bestselling version of the latte, the PSL has been their most popular seasonal beverage ever and has exhibited its highest sales in 2013.
Meanwhile the battle for the best pumpkin spice latte heats up as Panera Bread Co. competes with Starbucks by announcing that it will sell its pumpkin latte entirely free from artificial colors, flavors, sweeteners, preservatives or high fructose corn syrup and that it will also include real pumpkin in its version of the famous beverage this year, Seattle Pi reported.
