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Sugar Reduction Solutions
Sugar reduction is a central focus of healthy living among consumers motivated by medical necessity and preventative measures to achieve personal health goals. Additionally, reduced sugar claims in food and beverage launches are increasing globally.
When reducing and replacing sugar in your formulations, avoiding compromising on taste, texture, or functionality is essential. You need a solution that provides functional build-back and delivers similar textural and functional properties so that your products offer the same delectable experience that makes them stand out as consumer favorites.
Strategies for Sugar Reduction with Key Ingredients
Foodology by Univar Solutions offers a variety of ingredients to achieve your formulation goals. Explore our solutions to achieve your goals, whether creating healthier products, formulating a label claim, executing cost savings, or enhancing your product flavour. Our extensive food and beverage ingredient portfolio can help you meet your consumer needs for reducing sugar.
Agave Syrup
Agave syrup is an all-purpose sweetener with a neutral, mild flavor and low glycemic index. It adds sweetness without changing flavors and is perfect for beverages or foods. Benefits of Agave syrup include:
- Non-GMO-verified
- USDA organic
- Gluten-free
- Vegan
Cereal syrups and extracts
Cereal syrups and powder extracts are natural solutions to replace sucrose while retaining clean labeling, providing natural sugar reduction, and additional desirable properties such as natural colour, depth of flavour, and crispness. Various cereal extracts can offer different ways to explore the future natural recipe with an easy 1:1 replacement.
Enzymes
Lactase enzymes Saphera® convert lactose into two easily digestible sugars: glucose and galactose. This enzymatic solution allows you to develop low-sugar and low-lactose milk.
Saphera® Fiber offers a simple way to convert milk sugar (lactose) into dairy-based dietary fiber (galacto-oligosaccharides), enabling fiber-enriched claims with clean label benefits without impacting taste.
Explore more about enzyme solutions to enhance dairy and plant-based milk beverages.
Erythritol
Erythritol is a zero-calorie bulk sweetener with 70% sweetness of sucrose and has the highest digestive tolerance compared to other polyol sweeteners.
Thanks to its clean taste and functionality close to sucrose, erythritol enables signification sugar reduction in many applications. It has a slight cooling effect that lends its formulation to gum products.
Maltitol
Maltitol is 90% as sweet as sucrose, with fewer calories and a low cooling effect. Maltitol is often used in confectionery, bakery, and ice cream applications, often allowing for 1:1 replacement of sucrose and corn syrup solids for reduced-sugar and reduced-calorie formulation and labeling.
Natural Stevia Flavouring (NSF)
Although containing stevia, NSFs are not used as a sweetener, but as flavourings with modifying properties (FMPs). They modify the flavour profile by altering flavour attributes, including intensifying specific flavour characteristics such as:
- Perceived fruitiness (berries, citrus, tropical notes)
- Enriching vanilla and dairy flavours
- Amplifying cocoa notes
Additionally, manufacturers can use NSFs to mask bitterness and improve sweetness quality by amplifying upfront sweetness or suppressing unwanted linger. They are suitable for sweet and savoury applications, including bakery, working alone, or with stevia or other sweetener systems.
Soluble Fibres
When using soluble fibres, formulators gain an ideal solution to build-back sensory and functional attributes lost when reducing or replacing sugar, contributing up to 25% sugar reduction across a wide range of applications — while also offering the appeal of high fibre, consumer-friendly product claims.
As a low/no-calorie functional build-back ingredient, this solution helps you replicate total sugar products' unique bulking, browning, and mouthfeel.
Sorbitol
Sorbitol has a sugar-like taste and performance with a low cooling effect and is often used in conjunction with high-intensity sweeteners to replace sucrose.
Sorbitol is an excellent humectant, freeze point depressant, crystallization inhibitor, and excipient in food applications. A variety of crystalline sorbitol granulations are available to support applications such as:
- Frosting
- Icing
- Chewing gum
- Mints
- Tablets
Stevia
Stevia is up to 400 times as sweet as sugar, with zero calories and consumer-friendly labeling. From the leaf, numerous glycosides are extracted, with 11 approved in the EU. Each of these has different sweetness levels and taste characteristics. REB A is the most widely used glycoside, whereas REB M is the glycoside closest in performance to sugar in terms of sweetness and taste profile.
The use of stevia can support sugar reduction and claims of no added sugar in many applications, including beverages, dairy (and dairy alternatives), confectionery, sauces, and sports nutrition.
Lactose-free milk powders
Our range of specialty lactose-free milk powders help manufacturers develop different taste profiles and products full of all the wellness-boosting natural goodness consumer’s desire. These label-friendly, functional ingredients help you overcome your sugar reduction formulation challenges as well as keep your ingredient lists short and simple. The sweeter taste of the range enables sugar reduction or enhanced sweetness without increasing the total carbohydrate level.
High-intensity sweeteners
Need a sweetener that is low-calorie or easily suspends in liquids? We offer an extensive line of sweeteners to meet every performance demand.
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Customer value
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Specialty lab services
Innovating at the intersection of science, technology and consumer trends, Univar Solutions partners with customers and suppliers to create high-performing products and sustainable formulations.
