Sugar Reduction: Guilt Free Indulgence

Consumers want to indulge their sweet tooth without paying a price in terms of a healthy lifestyle. That’s an ongoing challenge for food and beverage manufacturers — one that’s being met with a growing array of lower-sugar and alternative sweetener options.

In the United States, the Food & Drug Administration has mandated that food and beverage nutrition labels list all added sugars, which is one major contributor helping drive lower-sugar products. It also opens opportunities to approach sugar reduction through innovative sweetener technologies, as many consumers have indicated that they would choose added sugar over a substitute. 

Consumers Demand Clean Labeling and Ingredient Transparency.

A recent Sensient poll showed that 65% of consumers said “natural flavor” was the thing they looked for most on a label.

A recent article in Food Business News recently dove into the issue, taking a look at what flavor technology experts such as Sensient are bringing to the table. They spoke with Deirdre Piggott, Sensient’s technical director, about efforts to use flavors with modifying properties to keep what consumers love about sugar — after getting rid of the sugar itself.

“The sweetness modifiers replace a small amount of sweetness,” Piggott told the magazine. “Therefore, they cannot replace a large amount of sugar, such as more than half in a beverage system, but they work like a charm with smaller reductions in building back the body that is lost when some sugar is removed.”

And if the Taste is Affected?

There’s a ready solution, says Piggott: “If the removal of sugar causes undesirable notes such as bitter, sour and astringent to come through, then masking flavors can be used.”

Read the full article at Food Business News.

Contact us to see how Sensient can be your partner in creating fresh, authentic and flavorful experiences for your consumers!