Cast as an evil, oozing harbinger of obesity and diabetes, sales of high fructose corn syrup have seen a downward spiral as companies swap the over-processed sweetener for healthier-sounding ingredients. So what’s the solution for the industry, according to the Corn Refiners Association? Change the name. To “corn sugar.” And presto! What was once a scary sounding goo becomes more natural-sounding, just as sweet and pure as cane sugar.

A new Web site and campaign rebranding HFCS as the innocuous term was launched today in the hopes that they will get FDA approval to change the name on food labeling. Over at CornSugar.com, ads and imagery of a maze mowed through corn fields symbolizes the path of misdirected customers confused by current labeling systems, as quotes from dietitians float helpfully above. (The Corn Refiners Association also own Corn.org and the icky-sounding SweetSurprise.com.)

“This seems to be a last-ditch attempt to try and salvage a product that they know is not good for Americans,” says Curt Ellis, one of the co-producers and stars of the 2007 documentary King Corn, as well as a Food and Society Fellow with the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. “They have lost some of their biggest customers as more industrial food companies are converting to table sugar or more natural ingredients than that. Companies are reducing the empty calories in their products.” Indeed, Pepsi Throwback, is among the many products from big companies now marketing their use of real sugar.

In 2008, the Corn Refiners Association launched a similar campaign called Sweet Surprise, which featured an estimated $30 million spent in ads attempting to de-vilify HFCS, produced by the same team behind CornSugar.com: DDB and Ogilvy PR. A request out to DDB for comment from the creatives has not yet been returned, yet in the press release on the Corn.org site, the reason given for the campaign is to help people make the right choices about their health. “As Americans grapple with an ‘obesity epidemic,’ [their quotes, not ours] well-renowned nutritionists question whether sweetener confusion could lead consumers to make misinformed decisions about sugars in their diets,” says the statement.