Canfield's Diet Chocolate Fudge soda is a zero-calorie,

aspartame Aspartame is an artificial non-saccharide sweetener 200 times sweeter than sucrose and is commonly used as a sugar substitute in foods and beverages. It is a methyl ester of the aspartic acid/phenylalanine dipeptide with the trade names ...

-sweetened carbonated soft drink canned and distributed by the

A.J. Canfield Company The A.J. Canfield Company was a Chicago-based independent producer of carbonated beverages founded in 1924. The company was known during its later years for marketing unusual flavors, including Canfield's Diet Chocolate Fudge; it was sold by the ...

Elgin, Illinois Elgin ( ) is a city in Cook and Kane counties in the northern part of the U.S. state of Illinois. Elgin is located northwest of Chicago, along the Fox River. As of the 2020 Census, the city had a population of 114,797, the seventh-large ...

USA The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

, a division of Select Beverages. Production for the midwestern United States is handled by the American Bottling Company, a subsidiary of

Keurig Dr Pepper Keurig Dr Pepper Inc., formerly Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (1981–2014) and Keurig Green Mountain (2014–2018), is a publicly traded American beverage and coffeemaker conglomerate with headquarters in Burlington, Massachusetts. Formed in ...

and distribution by Kehe Foods of

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

History

Beginnings

The beverage was introduced in 1972 by 32-year-old Alan B. Canfield, senior vice president of

-based A.J. Canfield Beverages, a company founded by his grandfather. Canfield was a regular dieter and chocolate lover, and got the idea the year before and brought a two-pound box of

fudge Fudge is a type of confection that is made by mixing sugar, butter and milk, heating it to the soft-ball stage at , and then beating the mixture while it cools so that it acquires a smooth, creamy consistency. In texture, this crystalline cand ...

to Manny Wesber, the company's chief chemist. Wesber succeeded in creating a saccharin-sweetened chemically-created concoction, entirely artificially flavored. The drink sold moderately well among Canfield's other brands, with sales remaining steady over the next 13 years.

1984 reintroduction

Canfield's Diet Chocolate Fudge was, by this time, sweetened with

. When ''

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'' reporter

Bob Greene Robert Bernard Greene Jr. (born March 10, 1947) is an American journalist and author. He worked for 24 years for the ''Chicago Tribune'' newspaper, where he was a columnist. Greene has written books on subjects including Michael Jordan, Alice C ...

reviewed the product and described it as tasting "like a calorie-free hot fudge sundae," sales went from lukewarm to highly successful in the soft drink market practically overnight. By 1985, regional bottlers across the United States were seeking

franchise Franchise may refer to: Business and law * Franchising, a business method that involves licensing of trademarks and methods of doing business to franchisees * Franchise, a privilege to operate a type of business such as a cable television p ...

rights. With these rights in place, more than 200 million cans of Canfield's Diet Chocolate Fudge soda were sold in 1985. As competition from other makers increased, Canfield's grew increasingly protective of their "Chocolate Fudge" moniker, going so far as to sue rival maker Vess Beverages over their use of the name, "Vess Diet Chocolate Fudge." A federal district court judge ruled in favor of Canfield and issued a

preliminary injunction An injunction is a legal and equitable remedy in the form of a special court order that compels a party to do or refrain from specific acts. ("The court of appeals ... has exclusive jurisdiction to enjoin, set aside, suspend (in whole or in par ...

disallowing the use of the word "fudge" on their packaging. Though the injunction was later overturned, the case, known as ''Canfield v. Honickman'', continues to be used as an example during the study of trademark product law. Spinoffs proved less successful. 1987 saw the introduction of "Diet Cherry Chocolate Fudge" and "Diet Peanut Chocolate Fudge," both of which are still sold today in limited numbers.

Sale of brand

In 1995, the A.J. Canfield Company was sold to Select Beverages for an undisclosed sum. The company's plant in Elgin, which had been operating since the 1930s, closed the following year. Production of the Diet Chocolate Fudge drinks was moved to another plant.

Notes

References