Including sweetness without using extra sugar
Chicago Marketers use terms like “slightly sweetened,” “a hint of sweetness,” and “just a little bit sweet” to imply that their drinks don’t contain a lot of sugar. Some people go with controlled content statements like “no added sugars,” “reduced sugar,” and “percent less sugar.” All are meant to appeal to the four out of five consumers who limit or avoid foods that include sugar, according to data from the International Food Information Council Foundation in Washington, which was released in its 2019 Food and Health Survey.
Studies reveal that some consumers base their decisions to buy and consume beverages on the amount of sugar—and now the “added sugar”—in them. On January 1st, the Nutrition Facts Label’s total sugars line had to include a necessary subset of added sugars.
Mel Mann, director of innovation at Wixon, St. Francis, Wisconsin, stated, “Although consumer confusion about food and health remains high, one area showing the strongest consensus is the desire to reduce the amount of sugar in an individual diet.” “The motivations behind this could include controlling weight and preventing health problems like diabetes, dental decay, and other harmful effects of consuming a lot of sugar.”
According to Rosa Sanchez, the North American beverage innovation leader at DuPont Nutrition & Biosciences in St. Louis, consumers who are pursuing the popular keto diet are looking for sugar-free beverages. Parents who act as gatekeepers also want their children’s beverages to have less added sugar.
Interpreting claims of lower sugar content
About acceptable sugar claims, the US Food and Drug Administration is quite particular. Products containing fewer than 0.5 grams of sugar per reference amounts ordinarily consumed (R.A.C.C.) and per labeled serving may bear the label “sugar-free.” It is permissible to make claims like “no added sugars” or “without added sugars” provided that no sugar or sugar-containing ingredient—such concentrated fruit juice—is added during processing. Claims referring to “less sugar” or “reduced sugar” are permissible if the amount of sugar in each R.A.C.C. is at least 25% lower. A comparison must be included on the label when making such a claim, for example, “50% less sugar than (the reference food).”
The FDA defines “low” as referring to certain nutrients and calories, but it hasn’t been approved for use with sugar. As a result, low-sugar statements are in violation of FDA labeling guidelines. There are no adjectives like “tad,” “a touch of,” or “slightly” in the regulations.
The F.D.A. was formally petitioned on January 9 by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, Washington, to initiate enforcement action against such language that suggests a beverage is not a concentrated source of added sugars. The group clarified that the assertions are untrue. For instance, the 16.9-oz bottle of Honest Tea’s Organic Half Tea and Half Lemonade boasts on its label that it is “Just a tad sweet,” despite the fact that it includes 25 grams of added sugar, or 36% of the Daily Value. To put things in perspective, a product is deemed “high” in any given nutrient by the FDA if it contains 20% or more of the Daily Value.
A Coca-Cola representative stated, “Since Honest launched in 1998, we’ve worked to create beverages that are ‘just a tad sweet.'” We think a great-tasting tea doesn’t have to be overly sugary. For instance, Moroccan Mint has eight grams of sugar, but other drinks like Ginger Oasis and Just Green Tea have none. This enables us to provide a range of healthier solutions that each and every customer may appreciate.
The spokesman went on to say that Honest continues to develop to provide a product that doesn’t taste overly sweet and that its teas have less sugar than those of many of its rivals.
“With the new added sugar callout on nutrition panels, beverages deemed recreational or discretionary will receive the most scrutiny,” Mr. Mann stated. Additionally, they offer the best chance to give customers choices for controlling their sugar intake while maintaining the level of familiarity they desire in their drinks.
Because sugar’s major, sometimes only, function in these kinds of goods is to impart sweetness, reduced-sugar beverage items should emphasize “sweetness maintenance,” explaining to customers how their taste experience won’t alter even as they reap the benefits of fewer added sugars. Beverage marketers can achieve sweetness in their products without using sugar by using a variety of other ingredients, as long as they match customer expectations for lower sugar content.
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Beyond just being sweet
Maintaining sweetness is all to giving sugar’s recognizable, characteristic taste curve. The developer needs to make sure that the sweet sensation occurs at the same time and with the same intensity of sweetness. This can necessitate carefully combining sugars with other ingredients, depending on the beverage.
“Choosing the appropriate sweetener system can be greatly influenced by the flavor of the beverage,” stated Vuk Levakov, Tate & Lyle’s technical manager for drinks in North America, Hoffman Estates, Illinois. “The inclusion of beneficial components like collagen, protein, and C.B.D. also has an effect.”
“Sugar reduction has become an essential element of beverage design and, more often than not, an expectation of the consumer in order to deliver on health properties that they intrinsically expect,” stated Jonas Feliciano, manager of strategic marketing, global sugar reduction, Ingredion Inc., Westchester, Ill. Plant-based high-potency sweeteners combined with natural caloric sweeteners should become the standard rather than an exception in formulations as added sugars must now be declared and artificial sweeteners are still losing popularity.
The most popular natural calorie sweetener in beverages is cane sugar. Per gram, it offers four calories from sugar. Certain natural sugars provide additional nutritional benefits.
“Beverage companies can incorporate a’sweetener-plus’ ingredient that maintains important nutritionals found in the whole grain, such as essential amino acids, minerals, vitamins, and soluble fiber, by using a minimally processed whole grain sweetener, such as malted barley or oats,” stated Amy Targan, president of Malt Products Corp., Saddle Brook, N.J.
Adding a taste modifier could help even more in addition to combining the sweeteners. Some flavors have an effect on sweetness as well.
“We differentiate our modifiers by following the sugar’s natural taste curve, which we have confirmed through independent sensory testing,” Mr. Mann stated. For example, vanilla stimulates retro-nasal receptors, which increase the tongue’s sweet signals and make drinks taste sweeter.
“Without adding their own taste, a class of substances called positive allosteric modifiers binds to sweet taste receptors on the tongue and amplifies the sweet signal to the brain.”
Since sugar is a substance that gives perceptible body when dissolved in a solution, it can also contribute to mouthfeel in some drinks. Artificial and natural high-intensity sweeteners are employed at such low concentrations that their solids contribution is negligible. The beverage will determine whether bulking agents like fiber.
Flavors with altering qualities are available from Sensient Flavors in Hoffman Estates, Illinois. Together, they restore the desired qualities that are lost when sugar is removed.
“The sweetness modifiers substitute a tiny quantity of sweetness,” stated Sensient’s technical director Deirdre Piggott. As a result, they are unable to completely replace sugar, such as more than 50% in a beverage system, but they do a great job of replenishing the body’s lost sugar content with smaller reductions.
“Making flavors can be used if removing the sugar causes unwanted notes like bitter, sour, and astringent to come through.”
According to Andy Ohmes, global director of high intensity sweeteners at Cargill in Minneapolis, “consumers’ unwavering demand for outstanding flavor is well established, but they are also becoming less tolerant of added sugars. Our cutting-edge stevia products have made it possible to create significantly better reduced-sugar beverage recipes.
Stevia leaf extracts and monk fruit are two examples of natural high-intensity sweeteners that go well with the expanding plant-based movement. It is imperative to acknowledge that stevia sweeteners are not made equally. Some are made by microbial fermentation, therefore they are no longer considered plant extracts.
SweeGen, Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif., provides sugar-reduction solutions by producing and supplying at large-scale sweet-tasting molecules through bioconversion. This results in a sustainable high-purity stevia sweetener.
Chicory root fiber is another plant-based component that helps with sweetness. Some component formats taste sweet in addition to increasing the beverage’s fiber content.
“We think that reduction should happen in a smart way that takes into account physiology and metabolism,” stated Kyle Krause, product manager for functional fiber and carbohydrates, North America, Beneo, Parsippany, N.J. “Our approach goes beyond simple sugar reduction.” “Adding fiber from chicory root can help lower added and total sugar intake. It’s a pretty simple approach to obtain all the benefits of prebiotics while also upping your fiber consumption.
The natural prebiotic components of chicory root fiber include oligofructose and inulin. They contribute to better bone health and weight control by lowering the glycemic response, improving the gut microbiome, and improving calcium absorption.
According to Mr. Mann, consumers will pay more attention to this particular nutritional component as a result of the new legislative necessity to label additional sugars. For this reason, it makes important to avoid or use very little added sugar, especially in beverages when switching to water is a simple and healthier option.
Drinks are a reasonable “first place” where consumers will become aware of how much sugar they are ingesting, according to him.