Fanta is less one drink than a family of fruit sodas, and the recipe changes with the flavour and the country. The five US flavours below have current ingredient lists on the manufacturer's site, so they can be read line by line.[1] Everything else, including Fanta bottled outside the US, needs its own label.
The five US flavours
| Flavour |
Sweetener and acid |
Preservatives |
Colours |
Other |
| Orange |
Corn syrup, citric acid |
Sodium benzoate |
Yellow 6, Red 40 |
Modified food starch, glycerol ester of rosin |
| Strawberry |
Corn syrup, citric acid |
Sodium benzoate |
Red 40 |
|
| Grape |
Corn syrup, tartaric and citric acid |
Potassium sorbate, sodium benzoate |
Red 40, Blue 1 |
|
| Peach |
Corn syrup, citric acid |
Sodium benzoate |
Yellow 6, Red 40 |
|
| Berry |
Corn syrup, citric, malic acid, sodium citrate |
Potassium sorbate, sodium benzoate |
Blue 1 |
|
All five start with carbonated water and include natural flavors.
Reading the unfamiliar lines
- The colours. Yellow 6, Red 40 and Blue 1 are the US names for Sunset Yellow (E110), Allura Red (E129) and Brilliant Blue (E133). They are synthetic dyes with no animal source; the E102 page covers that group. None of the five lists carmine (E120), the red made from insects.
- The preservatives and acids. Sodium benzoate (E211), potassium sorbate (E202), tartaric acid (E334), malic acid (E296) and sodium citrate (E331) are made by chemical synthesis or fermentation.
- Glycerol ester of rosin (E445). Only the orange flavour has it. It is pine resin bonded to glycerol, added so the orange oil stays evenly suspended instead of floating to the top. The rosin is plant; the glycerol can be plant, synthetic or animal, which is the question the E445 page sets out. Until the maker says where that glycerol comes from, Fanta Orange is Halal if verified.
- Natural flavors. In a fruit soda these are fruit and citrus extracts. The label does not say more, and the finished drink is not intoxicating in any quantity; natural flavors covers the wider debate.
Why the brand stays market-dependent
Four of the five named US drinks read Halal on their ingredients, and Orange turns on its E445. The same page also lists Pineapple, Piña Colada, Zero Sugar Orange and Mexican cane-sugar bottles with different lists, and Fanta abroad is made by local bottlers to local recipes. No named Halal certificate for US Fanta is on file here, so the US answer rests on the ingredients; where a bottler prints a Halal mark, it covers that bottler's product.
Fanta was first made in wartime Germany from whatever ingredients were available, including whey, but that history has no bearing on a can bought today. Sprite and Coca-Cola are judged the same way, each from its own label.
