A spokeswoman for the company, Molly Carter, says the move was in the works for the past year after the company began "hearing rumblings" from consumers about the ingredient. She said it was not a response to a recent petition on Change.org by a Mississippi teenager.

That petition noted that the ingredient, brominated vegetable oil, has been patented as a flame retardant and is banned in Japan and the European Union. The petition had more than 200,000 supporters.

Carter said the ingredient is still used in other PepsiCo drinks, such as Mountain Dew.