Coca-Cola Co.

$57.01

+0.83%

Coca-Cola Co., the world's largest soft drink maker, and Cargill Inc. say a natural sweetener from the stevia plant, which grows in Central and South America, is said to be 200 times sweeter than sugar and safe for humans.

Truvia, a brand jointly owned by the companies, will be sold as a tabletop sweetener starting this year and used in beverages by Atlanta-based Coca-Cola, Zanna McFerson, business director for Cargill's health and nutrition unit, said Thursday in an interview.

Coke plans to use Truvia to expand its beverage portfolio, said Dr. Rhona Applebaum, Coke's vice president and chief scientific and regulatory officer, in a conference call with journalists.

But she declined for "competitive reasons" to say when Coke products with Truvia could be introduced.

A panel of five scientists and medical researchers concluded Truvia was safe for commercial sale, said Cargill, which paid for the review.

—- Staff reports and Bloomberg News

Outage in Chicago disrupts ICE

Trading on Intercontinental-Exchange markets was halted for several hours Thursday when the exchange shut down its system because of what it called a power issue.

Power was out for nearly an hour following the emergency shutdown at ICE's primary data center in Chicago at midmorning, spokeswoman Kelly Loeffler said from the exchange's Atlanta headquarters. It took over two more hours before futures markets were up and running again at 2 p.m. EDT.

The outage caused all orders to be suspended.

Loeffler did not provide further details about the cause. The exchange kept customers informed with brief updates on its Web site.

—- Associated Press