DHAKA: The world’s largest beverage-maker, Coca-Cola, plans to remove a controversial ingredient from some of its drinks brands by the end of this year, following an online petition.

Brominated vegetable oil, or BVO, is found in Coca-Cola fruit and sports drinks such as Fanta and Powerade.

It will be replaced after concerns an element of the additive is also found in flame retardants.

Rival Pepsi removed the chemical from its Gatorade sports drink last year.

A Pepsi spokesman said it also had wider plans to stop using BVO and had ‘been actively working to remove it from the rest of our product portfolio’.

Pepsi uses the ingredient in its Mountain Dew and Amp Energy drinks.

Coca-Cola spokesman Josh Gold stressed the move to remove BVO was not an issue of safety.

‘All of our beverages, including those with BVO, are safe and always have been, and comply with all regulations in the countries where they are sold,’ he said in a statement, reports the BBC.

BDST: 1438 HRS, MAY 06, 2014