Ingredient opportunities keep bursting into the sweetener category this year for food and beverage companies seeking new ways to reduce sugar in products. The opportunities come in the forms of new blends, line extensions and company partnerships. They frequently involve stevia plant extracts and monk fruit extracts, two high-intensity sweeteners perceived as natural.

Ryan Turner, a private chef from Great Britain, experimented with different sweeteners, including stevia and monk fruit, for five years in developing Sola, said Michael Servie, president of The Sola Co., Houston.

Sugarlike sweeteners have been shown to work in beverages, baked foods, confectionery items, dairy items, supplements and table-top sweeteners, he said. Some lines of Sugarlike are organic, and the company also produces some Sugarlike sweeteners that are Non-GMO Project verified.

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As obesity rates continue to climb in the United States, the food and beverage industry is actively creating more choices for consumers to meet their health goals of reducing sugar and calorie intake. While many Americans claim to want healthier foods and beverages, they will not trade taste for calorie reduction. Among the consumers who say they are consuming foods and beverages with low-calorie sweeteners, nearly half (48 percent) do so to help reduce overall calorie consumption. However, when asked what factors impact their food purchase decisions, 84 percent agree taste is at the top of their list, followed by price and healthfulness, respectively.

Allulose, a low-calorie sweetening ingredient, provides the full taste and enjoyment of sugar but without all the calories. Unlike stevia and monk fruit or artificial sweeteners, allulose is not a high-potency sweetener. Allulose is 70 percent as sweet as sucrose and has the same temporal profile as sucrose, unlike other zero- or low-calorie alternatives available. Formulating with allulose makes it easier for food and beverage manufacturers because it delivers many of the benefits that sucrose offers beyond just sweetness.

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Nearly 60% of Americans are trying to cut down on sugar, according to a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll – more than those targeting lower calories, sodium, fats, carbohydrates or cholesterol. Just 39% of respondents said they did not intend to reduce their sugar intake, so it’s a natural move for heavy sugar users like ice cream makers to look at other options. A Mintel’s 2017 report on things to come in the industry listed the top trend to be backlash against sugar, so it’s an issue that consumers are already starting to think about.

Some dairy dessert makers choose to target fewer calories, rather than clean label ingredients, in their effort to strike a balance between health and indulgence with low-calorie sweeteners are still proving popular. Allulose has a similar mouthfeel to sugar at 70% of its sweetness and without the calories. Meanwhile, parallel advances in bulking agents, including inulin, oligosaccharides and various hydrocolloids, have helped add back the texture and mouthfeel that is often lost when sugar is removed.

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‘Rare sugars’ are becoming a buzz phrase in Japan, but interest in the US is currently limited to industry insiders, with allulose increasingly an ingredient of interest, say representatives from Matsutani.

Allulose, also known as psicose, is a monosaccharide and contains virtually no calories. It has the bulk, texture of regular sugar and 70% of the sweetness.

The sugar works well with high potency sweeteners such as stevia and sucralose, can be used to reduce or replace sugar in everything from beverages, yogurt and ice cream to baked products, candies, salad dressings, gum, cereal and sugar substitutes.

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There’s a new candidate in the century-old quest for perfect, guiltless sweetness.

I encountered it at the annual meeting of the Institute of Food Technologists, a combination of Super Bowl, Mecca, and Disneyland for the folks who put the processing in processed food.

…There are plenty of low-calorie sugar substitutes. But Harrison says most of them wouldn’t work in this ice cream. Because sugar, and allulose, do more than deliver sweetness: They also keep the ice cream from freezing solid.

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