Soft drinks giant PepsiCo has announced that it plans to continue selling its aspartame-sweetened diet Pepsi online despite having committed in April to remove the artificial sweetener from the product.

The soft drink giant had promised to drop the use of the sweetener from August after customers voiced their concerns and said that the use of aspartame was the primary reason for which they were opting against consuming diet cola.

However, the European Food Safety Authority had said in 2013 that aspartame and its breakdown products were safe for human consumption at the current levels.

According to figures from the Beverage Digest, consumption of diet soda in the US had dropped by 5.9% in 2014.

The new product that is supposed to hit the markets in August will contain a mixture of acesulfame potassium, another artificial sweetener containing zero calories and sucralose, another less controversial sweetener.

These ingredients would be used in Diet Pepsi, Caffeine Free Diet Pepsi and Wild Cherry Diet Pepsi in the US market.

Japan’s Ajinomoto, Korea’s Daesang and Chinese companies including SinoSweet and VitaSweet produce aspartame.

Meanwhile, PepsiCo has said that the company saw a 5.1% increase in organic revenue growth and core earnings per share of $1.32 in the second quarter.

PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi said: "PepsiCo achieved strong financial performance in the second quarter. We delivered mid-single digit organic revenue growth, strong gross margin expansion and double-digit core constant currency EPS growth."