Tate & Lyle Launches solution for reduced-calorie fruit dessert

10/04/06 Tate & Lyle launched two new Solution Sets for the European fruit dessert industry. These will enable food manufacturers to meet consumer demands for reduced-calorie fruit dessert without compromising taste and texture. Fruit dessert can be used in a wide range of applications including bakery toppings, sold in jars as a fruit topping for toast and as a grab-and-go fruit dessert.
 
The fruit dessert sector has been divided in recent years into three parts: full-sugar products, light products and ultra-light products. While commercially available ultra-light products contain around 90 per cent fewer calories than full-sugar fruit dessert, they have proved unpopular with many consumers because of their jelly-like consistency. Tate & Lyle’s new Solution Sets have a nutritional profile which fits between the ultra-light and light category but deliver the taste and texture of a light product.
 
“Light and ultra-light fruit desserts have typically ticked all the boxes for nutritional content but disappointed on taste and mouthfeel. We have seen that irrespective of high calorie or sugar reduction, products which do not deliver on taste will not achieve mainstream success. Taste is king. In response to requests from the industry, our European R+D team has developed two new fruit dessert Solution Sets,” explains Mike Augustine, Global Vice-President of Ingredient Applications and Technical Services.  “Fruit desserts made with our products give a burst of fruit flavour and have a soft, jam-like mouthfeel. By using Tate & Lyle’s Fruit Dessert REBALANCE, fruit dessert manufacturers can reformulate the nutritional profile of their popular brands and offer consumers a product with the same taste and texture as a light product, but with far fewer calories.”
 
Tate & Lyle’s Solution Sets offer a great reduction of calories compared to equivalent full-sugar products while maintaining the fruity taste and pleasant mouthfeel consumers love. Prototype fruit desserts made with either of the two Solution Sets also show good spreadability. These prototypes have been made with strawberries, the most popular fruit on this market, but food manufacturers can use the Solution Sets with any fruit they wish.
 
Fruit Dessert REBALANCE 018, the dry Solution Set allows a caloric reduction of 48 per cent compared to equivalent full-sugar products and offers a final nutritional value of 67.0 kcal/100g. Fruit Dessert REBALANCE 017 is a liquid Solution Set that allows a caloric reduction of 40 per cent compared to equivalent full-sugar products and offers a final nutritional value of 86.0 kcal/100g. In both cases, the final sugar content of the fruit dessert is equal or above 5g /100g.