“Replace, Rebalance, Rebuild”: ADM spotlights three-step sugar reduction system

The pressure on food and beverage manufacturers to cut sugar is intensifying alongside growing consumer pressure on price. According to ADM’s latest research, 44% of US consumers and 35% of UK consumers have had to choose between buying food or paying for other essentials in the past 12 months.

ADM spotlights that taste and price, along with high-quality ingredients, are major factors influencing purchasing decisions. The company also says that this combination is reshaping how ingredient suppliers think about sweetener selection.

The US-headquartered firm says the era of choosing a single sweetener for a single product is giving way to portfolio thinking. Formulators are now drawing from multiple stevia formats, complementary natural sweeteners, and structural ingredients, depending on the cost-in-use, taste profile, and clean label positioning of the finished product.

Food Ingredients First sits down with Sarah Diedrich, ADM’s senior product marketing director for global sweetening and texturizing solutions, to discuss how the company’s expanded stevia portfolio fits into growing reformulation trends.

Optionality over replacement

Diedrich says that the starting point for ADM’s framing is looking at how consumers actually use sugar-reduced products.

“Consumers prioritize optionality,” Diedrich reveals. “This has put an emphasis on reinvention and category expansion, such as a full sugar soda and a zero sugar option.”

“Both products have a place in consumers’ households and lifestyles, depending on the consumption occasion.”

For Diedrich, that reframing matters commercially. She highlights that ADM’s research underscores how seriously consumers are weighing those trade-offs. 

“With our full suite of quality sweetening solutions, ADM can help bridge this gap for brands, finding the right system of ingredients that deliver on cost optimization, along with taste, texture, and reduced sugar targets,” Diedrich says.

ADM frames sugar reduction as optionality, not full-sugar to zero-sugar replacement.She also notes that the company is focused on its “Replace Rebalance Rebuild” method, which replaces sweetness, rebalances flavor, and rebuilds functionality.

Diedrich adds that this framework is designed to ensure that cost optimization does not come at the expense of sensorial performance. She also says the trade-offs between price and taste are made deliberately rather than as accidents of single-ingredient selection.

Leaf-derived versus bioconversion stevia

Within that framework, Diedrich highlights that stevia has become ADM’s most heavily developed natural high-intensity sweetener in the category. The company’s SweetRight Stevia line now spans multiple formats, each designed for specific cost and taste profiles.

“Our SweetRight Stevia Edge solutions are ideal for sweetening replacement, delivering on both taste and performance directly from the stevia leaf,” she says. “Within this line, we tap our SweetRight Stevia Edgility for clean label positioning, perfecting taste and supporting sugar- and calorie-reduction targets, all while managing costs.”

“For greater efficiency and cost improvement, we recently introduced SweetRight Stevia Echo, which provides high-performance sweetening via bioconversion. Our new Stevia Echo enables successful full-sugar replacement and higher usage rates, all while delivering on optimal taste with reduced off-notes and linger.”

SweetRight Stevia Echo is currently available for use and formulation in North and South America.

Diedrich says the distinction between leaf-derived and bioconversion-derived stevia matters for formulators making cost decisions. Leaf-derived products carry the clearest clean label story but face limits on the depth of reduction they can support without off-note penalties. Bioconversion expands the reduction ceiling and improves taste consistency at scale, which in turn improves the cost economics of deep-reduction reformulations.

According to Diedrich, ADM’s portfolio is structured so formulators can choose between the two approaches depending on the priorities of the specific application.

A complete sweetener system

Alongside stevia, ADM has also expanded its allulose offering as a complementary tool rather than a competing one. Diedrich says its allulose solution offers a multi-purpose sweetening functionality that fills gaps stevia alone cannot address.

“Our SweetRight Allulose is available in both syrup and dry powder forms, providing multi-purpose sweetening functionality in the sugar reduction system while avoiding the use of sugar alcohols,” she emphasizes. “Specific to the US market, allulose helps with upfront sweetness and bulking.”

“It also combines well with high-potency sweeteners like stevia to replace any further lost sweetness.”

Diedrich says that, while stevia delivers most of the sweetness intensity at low usage levels, allulose contributes upfront sweetness and bulking at higher inclusion rates. Together, she says the two ingredients can produce a sweetness profile that more closely resembles sucrose than either could alone.

For formulators, Diedrich says this means deeper reduction targets become achievable without the off-note penalties that historically capped stevia-only formulations.

She also reveals that sugar alcohols are classified as additives in many jurisdictions, and can carry digestive tolerance limitations. 

However, Diedrich says that allulose is recognized as zero-calorie and excluded from “sugars” in the US, giving it a labeling advantage that supports clean label and “cost-in-use” objectives.

Diedrich says that the combined picture, including multiple stevia formats, complementary allulose, and broader structural ingredients, is how ADM is responding to a market where reformulation projects can no longer be solved by a single sweetener pick.

She concludes that the right answer for any given product depends on the specific balance of cost, taste profile, application, and label positioning the brand is targeting.