High fructose corn syrup, the sugar alternative used to sweeten sodas, cookies, condiments and cereals, is beginning to lose some ground in the packaged-food industry.

More big-name food and beverage products—including Kraft Foods Inc.’s Wheat Thins —have begun dropping the ingredient in favor of sugar, despite a big difference in cost, saying they are responding to consumer preferences for ingredients perceived as more natural.

In recent months, Kraft has taken high fructose corn syrup out of the recipes for its 100-calorie pack Nabisco cookies, Wheat Thins crackers and most of its namesake salad dressings. With Wheat Thins, Kraft said it saw discussions on its Web site on the subject of high fructose corn syrup and received comments directly from consumers, pushing it to remove the sweetener. Read more at online.wsj.com