NEW YORK – The Wall Street Journal reports that PepsiCo Inc.’s “big aspartame-free bet” is hitting store shelves this week with the rollout of the company’s reformulated Diet Pepsi.

The front of the new Diet Pepsi can declare “Now Aspartame Free” and PepsiCo is planning an “aggressive” sampling campaign in stores. PepsiCo is also removing the current Diet Pepsi formulation that contains aspartame from store shelves. It’s a “big risk whenever a major brand is involved,” writes the news source. The move comes after PepsiCo surveys showed aspartame (aka Equal and NutraSweet) was the top reason cited by consumers for ditching diet soda. 

PepsiCo is confident that testing with thousands of consumers and two years of reworking the Diet Pepsi formula will thwart any backlash following the company’s announcement in April of plans to switch to an aspartame-free recipe.

“It took us a lot of time but we've nailed it,” Seth Kaufman, senior vice president, Pepsi Trademark, told the Wall Street Journal, adding that more than 75% of consumers who tested the new version liked it. He said the company has stopped shipping aspartame-sweetened Diet Pepsi to stores and that it will disappear from shelves in the coming weeks.

Aspartame-free versions of Caffeine-Free Diet Pepsi and Wild Cherry Diet Pepsi will also be available in the United States.

John Sicher, editor and publisher of Beverage Digest, commented in the current issue of NACS Magazine that diet soft drinks “are still way underperforming regular soft drinks, as some consumers still swear away from legacy sweeteners.” Overall, growth in carbonated soft drink sales in convenience stores has slowed to a crawl, according to the NACS State of the Report of 2014 Data, with sales increasing only 1.5% and units advancing 0.2% in 2014.