Sweetener suppliers target sugar’s structure gap in drinks, confectionery and high-protein foods

Industry experts state that taking sugar out of a food or drink is not as simple as dropping in a sweetener that matches its taste. Sugar also does physical work in most products, providing body, bulk, texture, and mouthfeel. A high-intensity sweetener used at a fraction of its weight can leave much of that work undone.

The category where that gap hits hardest is itself contested. Everything from beverages to confectionery to plant-based and high-protein products need sugar replacements to do their part in structure and function. Formulators must decide which part of sugar’s job they need to replace and choose the replacement ingredients accordingly.

Food Ingredients First sits down with Tate & Lyle, HTBA, and Layn Natural Ingredients to look at the latest sweetener innovations aimed at filling current formulation gaps.

Beverages’ solubility problem

Doris Ip, senior marketing manager at Layn, points to beverages as one of the biggest problems sugar replacement solutions have to solve.

“Beverage remains the hardest category for sugar reduction, largely because sugar plays multiple roles in a liquid system and many alternatives struggle with solubility,” says Ip.

“In drinks, sugar doesn’t just sweeten, it also contributes to body, mouthfeel, flavor release, and overall balance. Simply replacing it with a high-intensity sweetener can leave products thin, unstable, or prone to crystallization, especially in cold or ready-to-drink formats.”Layn’s Doris Ip says solubility and body make beverages the hardest category for sugar replacement.

Asked where Layn is investing most heavily, Ip points to vertical integration across the sweetener portfolio — tissue culture, seedling development, cultivar improvement, and extraction all held in-house.

“That source-to-solution approach gives us the ability to improve sweetness performance, consistency, and functionality while bringing new solutions to market faster,” she says.

Alongside its plant-derived monk fruit extracts and decoctions, Ip says Layn is developing a fermentation route to Mogroside V, the main sweet compound in monk fruit, producing the molecule without the fruit itself. She notes that this is now at lab-scale.

“This new approach supports a more consistent, scalable, and sustainable supply of Mogroside V for natural sweetener formulations, with Layn’s own fermented Mogroside V now at lab-scale development under our growing biotechnology platforms,” says Ip.

On stevia, Ip points to SteviUp M2, launched in July 2025.

“[SteviUp M2] allows us to access a rare stevia molecular component with a cleaner, more sugar-like taste, superior solubility, and reduced lingering sweetness compared with conventional stevia extracts, while supporting clean label and regulatory expectations.”

Brooke Grandberry, global sweetener portfolio director at Tate & Lyle, says that getting the balance right is the hard part.

“The key challenge is finding the right ratios between fiber and allulose, which differ from the traditional corn syrup and sugar ratios, to ensure a desirable texture that maintains its quality throughout the product’s shelf life,” she says.

For Grandberry, that work decides whether a shopper comes back. “While consumers are drawn to reduced sugar/calories and added fiber claims as health halos in these spaces under better-for-you treat occasions, the eating experience is key to food joy and repurchase intent, which is why replacing functionality is key,” she says.

She highlights that Tate & Lyle is also investing through partnerships.Tate & Lyle’s Brooke Grandberry turns to fibers to rebuild bulk in confectionery.

“Our collaboration with Manus, through the Sweetener Alliance, supports the development of innovative products like Yume M Stevia Sweetener,” she adds. “Our partnership with BioHarvest focuses on leveraging cutting-edge technology to develop the next generation of plant-based ingredients.”

Bulking confectionery

Grandberry says Tate & Lyle is looking to confectionery, where sugar builds candy and chocolate as much as it sweetens them, as the challenge for sweeteners to solve.

She highlights that the company’s Splenda Sucralose and Yume M Stevia Sweetener carry the sweetness, at a fraction of sugar’s weight, one six-hundredth in the case of sucralose. However, she reveals this means the ingredients cannot replace sugar’s bulk.

“Sugar is not only responsible for sweetness but also crucial for the texture, structure, and mouthfeel of confectionery items,” says Grandberry. “It provides the necessary bulk and crystallization that define the texture of candies and chocolates.”

Tate & Lyle says it has built solutions for gelatin and pectin-based no-sugar-added (NSA) gummies and for sugar replacement in chocolate. To put the bulk back, Grandberry says the company uses fibers and specialty carbohydrates rather than the sweeteners themselves. 

“We utilize ingredients like Promitor Soluble Fiber and Sta-Lite Polydextrose, which can mimic the bulk of corn syrup without the calories and with added nutritional benefits,” she explains.

“Additionally, Dolcia Prima Allulose and Euoligo FOS [fructooligosaccharides] Specialty Fiber help restore some of the sugar’s functionality due to their smaller molecular structures.”

Balancing multiple proteins

Emily Wagener, global product manager for taste modulation at HTBA, says the hardest problems for sweeteners to solve are in plant-based and high-protein products.

“Functional ingredients such as plant proteins, botanicals, and added vitamins can introduce beany, earthy, or astringent notes, while reducing sugar can remove some of the sweetness and flavor balance that previously helped to mask them,” says Wagener.HTBA’s Emily Wagener says its Citrose ingredient blends to tame plant protein off-notes.

“In a conventional beverage, the focus may be primarily on managing sweetness intensity, onset, and aftertaste. In a plant-based or high-protein product, formulators may need to address sweetness, off-notes, mouthfeel, and overall flavor balance simultaneously. Improving one aspect can easily make another more noticeable.”

HTBA launched Citrose as a citrus-derived sweetener at IFT FIRST 2026. Wagener says that HTBA has tried to answer the reputation question with data, running consumer research on the Citrose name next to sensory testing.

“Citrose was received more favorably than acesulfame-K, stevia, sucralose, and aspartame, while consumers said it was comparable to stevia for naturalness and rated it higher for authenticity of taste,” she underscores.

According to Wagener, the strongest proof is in the customer’s own products.

“We work with customers from the formulation stage, explaining what a modulator or sweetener is doing and running side-by-side trials so they can evaluate the effect in their specific product,” she stresses.

“For our customers, seeing a citrose-stevia blend hold its own against a stevia-sugar reference often demonstrates how the ingredient performs more effectively than a technical document can,” Wagener concludes.