Before You Reduce Sugar: Questions to Ask Before Starting a Reformulation
With Lindsay Wisener, Applications Manager, Apura Ingredients®
Reducing sugar can affect much more than sweetness. Texture, mouthfeel, flavor, browning,
moisture and even processing can change depending on the formulation and how much sugar
is being removed.
Before starting a reformulation project, it helps to understand what the sugar is doing in the
existing product, what the finished product needs to deliver and where there may be room for
trade-offs.
We asked Lindsay Wisener, Applications Manager at Apura Ingredients, what product
developers should be thinking about before they begin.
When a customer wants to reduce sugar or change a sweetener system, what’s the first thing you want to understand about the formulation?
The first consideration is the level of sugar or sweetness in the current formulation and how
much sugar they want to remove.
The second is the source of the sugar or sweetness. Is it coming from added sugar, high
fructose corn syrup, fruit juice or lactose? What formulation changes will need to be made to
reduce the sugar?
The third consideration is what functions other than sweetness the sugar is providing and how
sugar reduction or a change in the sweetener system will impact those functions.
What functions can sugar provide beyond sweetness?
Sugar impacts texture and mouthfeel across formulations, whether it’s baked goods, bars,
beverages or other applications.
It can also impact attributes like browning. In baking, browning is desirable. In a fruit-flavored
beverage, a reduction in browning might actually be a positive thing.
Sugar content can also affect water retention and water activity in products such as filled
products and cold-formed bars, although this isn’t an issue in beverages.
Sugar can also impact how other basic tastes, such as sourness, astringency and saltiness, are
perceived.
Flavor can change, too. Fruit flavors can seem less authentic with reduced sweetness. Other
flavors, such as vanilla and chocolate, may not be as impactful or can experience changes in
flavor character when sugar is reduced. Chocolate, for instance, might seem more bitter.
What are some of the most common formulation issues you see when sugar is reduced?
The most common issue is the need to rebalance flavors and other basic tastes, such as acidity
and bitterness, with the new sweetener system replacing the sugar.
Sweetness typically helps balance other basic tastes, so with less sweetness, bitterness,
sourness, acidity and astringency can become more pronounced. It becomes important to
manage those tastes and rebalance the flavor profile.
When working with high-intensity sweeteners for sugar reduction, the sweetness profile will also
be altered, including the way the sweetness builds when it hits the palate. This can impact how
flavors hit the palate, and there may be a need to increase or reduce flavors or other ingredients
that impact taste based on the sweetener system.
The other major factors are texture and mouthfeel. These attributes relate to the overall
experience of the food.
We expect chocolate milk to have body but not be slimy. We expect bars to be pliable, not
brittle. We expect brownies to be soft, but not dry and crumbly.
A lack of mouthfeel, especially in a beverage, can also impact how flavor is perceived by the
palate. More body in a beverage holds onto the palate longer and allows the drinker to
experience both the flavor and the sweetness.
How does the application affect the approach?
It can vary significantly depending on whether you’re working with dairy, beverages, bakery or
another application.
Dairy: Mouthfeel becomes very important. Sugar reductions can be obvious, and replacing the
sugar is about more than replacing sweetness. It may also be about rebuilding texture and
mouthfeel.
Very high-protein dairy and even very high-protein non-dairy products can have a diminishing
effect on some high-intensity sweeteners, especially natural high-intensity sweeteners. Normal
sugar-equivalent recommendations may not always hold true, and higher levels may be needed.
Beverages: While mouthfeel is still important, one of the first concerns is selecting and
formulating a sugar replacement that has minimal impact on flavor and managing the changes
in sweetness profile that come with replacing sugar with high-intensity sweeteners.
Bakery: The other functions of sugar besides sweetness, including adding bulk, retaining
moisture and browning, need to be taken into consideration in a bigger way than in dairy or
beverages. There are fewer options in the sugar-replacement toolbox that perform these
functions well.
Processing parameters such as baking times and temperatures may also need to be altered to
account for the different water-retention properties of bulking agents used to replace sugar. In
contrast, sugar replacement generally does not impact processing as much in dairy and
beverage applications.
What should a product developer identify as “must-haves” before beginning reformulation?
The first question should be around the amount of sugar reduction and the nutrition targets. This
helps narrow down the approach and the tools that will be needed to achieve the goal. A 10–
30% sugar reduction, for example, will use different tools than a 50–100% reduction.
Next are any regulatory or labeling parameters. Many brands have very specific ingredients they
do and don’t want on the label, and many also have views on natural versus artificial sweetener
systems.
Regulatory requirements are often followed by the cost discussion. Cost is a concern in every
project, but there may need to be a discussion about trade-offs. Are artificial sweeteners allowed
if they help meet the cost target? Is a cost increase acceptable for the use of natural
sweeteners?
Processing and shelf life are both important, but those conversations are often addressed once
the final recommendations have been made. Shelf life testing and larger-scale processing
typically take place closer to the end of the project to avoid testing too many variables at once
and to keep trial costs down.
The exception can be bakery, where processing should be a bigger part of the project
considerations up front.
When can a sweetener be a relatively straightforward replacement, and when might other ingredients or a system be needed?
Smaller reductions in sugar, around 10–30%, tend to be more straightforward because there’s
less impact on the sweetness profile, flavor, texture and mouthfeel.
Total sugar replacement or changing from an artificial sweetener system to a natural sweetener
system is much more complicated.
In these cases, ingredients to replace mouthfeel may be needed, along with more sophisticated
combinations of ingredients to achieve sweetness profiles similar to sugar and manage sweet
linger or aftertastes from higher usage levels of high-intensity sweeteners.
What information is most helpful when someone brings you an existing formulation they want to change?
Any parameters they need to meet in terms of regulations, nutrition and cost are essential to
understand, along with the trade-offs they might be willing to make.
For instance, can I show them something that meets the cost target and another option that
might be above cost but is perhaps a better overall solution?
Beyond the technical parameters, it’s helpful to know what their experiences have been with
high-intensity sweeteners.
Have they previously tried them in their products? If so, what didn’t work? When did they try it?
Is there a product on the market they think is using these ingredients well? Is there one they
don’t care for?
And what are they most worried about when making the change? A bad aftertaste? A change in
mouthfeel or flavor? Cost?
It’s also helpful for clients to ask for recommended starting usage levels or combinations that
have worked in similar applications in the past.
What’s one mistake you commonly see when companies approach sugar reduction?
The biggest mistake is not having an open mind.
Many times, clients come in suggesting or requiring that a very specific sweetener can or can’t
be used. For example, they may want to use only monk fruit because they “don’t like stevia” or
have had a bad experience with it in the past.
This can be very limiting in the solutions that can be offered. The client may miss out on the best
solution for their product because of a preconceived idea of how a specific sweetener performs.
High-intensity sweeteners are constantly evolving, and newer offerings, including flavor-modifying products used in combination with sweeteners, can provide significantly improved
solutions compared with earlier versions.