Sugar Reduction: Formulating for Success
01 Mar 2018 | Kerry Health and Nutrition Institute
Sugar ranks at the top of the list when it comes to consumer nutrition concerns. Sugar reduction poses a challenge across all product categories. The responsibility and cost of helping consumers reduce their sugar intake is being pushed onto the food and beverage industry by legislation like sugar taxes. Hear from nutrition and applications experts on how to succeed with sugar reduction. Find out what makes healthier products likeable while fitting into labelling and tax legislation across the world.
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Hello everyone and welcome to today's webinar, which is entitled Sugar Reduction Formulating for Success and which is sponsored by the Kerry Health and Nutrition Institute.
So I think that the timing of today's webinar couldn't be any more relevant, with sugar reduction really at the top of most NPD agendas.
So from April 6, 2018, a sugar tax will come into effect in the UK with essentially two bands of products.
These are a lower rate of 18 pence per liter for drinks with a total sugar content of between 5 and 8 g per 100 mL, and a higher rate of 24 pence per liter for drinks with total sugar of more than 8 g per 100 mL, and drinks with a sugar content of lower than 5 g per 100 mL will not be subject to the levy.
But the UK is not really alone in taking this taxing route, and Ireland will also introduce a similar scheme this April.
Since 2010, various strategies have been employed around the world, with some success being reported in Mexico, but other countries such as Denmark and Finland have actually stopped imposing the sugar tax.
So the market penetration of new food and beverage products with sugar reduction claims continues to grow.
So in an open market insights analysis of new product launches with the claims of low sugar, sugar-free, and sugar reduced, found that these products accounted for just under 5% of all global launches reported in 2013.
But by 2017, this had risen to 6.2%, and this is a CA of 24.6% over this period.
So quite significant growth now, I have to say.
Among the top product categories featuring sugar reduction claims.
Dairy shows the largest average annual growth of 27.2% between 2013 and 2017, but it is still really soft drinks that leads in terms of making these claims ahead of baby and toddler foods, confectionery, dairy and bakery.
And in fact, in 2017, 1 in every 5 food and beverage launches that featured a sugar reduction claim was a soft drink.
But this is based on products actively communicating and reduced content rather than those using a stealth strategy whereby formulation takes place.
So with this background, I would like to introduce today's speakers.
So our first speaker, Ashley Ahern, who is a Nutrition Science Manager at Kerry, is going to speak about sugar reduction around the world, consumer health and legislation demands.
Aisling graduated with both BSC and PhD degrees in nutrition from University College Cork in Ireland, and her career has involved working in nutrition research, science communication, as as clinical nutrition support.
In April 2016, Aisling joined the Kerry Group as Nutrition Science manager for Europe and Russia.
Her role involves working collaboratively with Kerry RDNA, marketing, regulatory and commercial teams on projects and opportunities.
Following on from Aisling's speech, Ashley Baker, who is VP RDNA Sweet and cereal at Kerry, will speak on why products fail, overcoming the complexities of reduced sugar.
Now Ashley graduated with a degree in biochemistry from the University of Glasgow.
His career has spanned R&D and innovation roles in global multinationals and UK national companies, both in food and non-food FMCG sectors.
He joined Kerry in 2014 and is currently the vice president for Research Development and applications for Kerry's Sweet and Syria division in Europe and Russia.
So just before we start today's webinar, just a quick reminder that we will have a Q&A session after the webinar.
So if you have any questions that you would like to ask either of our speakers, please enter them in the question panel.
And before that, during the webinar itself, we will have two polling questions to look out for.
So if you can look out for these during the broadcast, and we really appreciate your participation on these topical questions.
I think they should give a really nice impression of what the industry's view is around this very interesting topic of sugar reduction.
So very interested to see what the results will be after this.
So with no further ado, Aisling, Aisling is now going to talk about the sugar reduction around the world.
So Aisling, the floor is yours.
Mr President, everyone, and I am here today to talk about added sugar, such as the definitions, the dietary sources and intake from the diet, and why are sugar taxes implemented, and I will actually give examples of sugar taxes around the world, and then I will talk about the impact of sugar taxes do they actually work on lowering sugar consumption, but also on the levels of obesity across the globe.
Finally, I will talk about the holistic approach when it comes to tackling obesity.
So several studies have shown a link between the excessive consumption of sugar and weight gain, diabetes, and other chronic diseases.
In 2015, the World Health Organisation published their sugar intake report, where they advised, reducing the intake of free sugars throughout the life course, and this is a strong recommendation.
2, limiting intake of free sugars to less than 10% of total energy.
This is also a strong recommendation.
They also advised further reducing free sugar consumption to below 5% of total energy intake, and this is a conditional recommendation.
So what are added sugars, and where are they found in the diet?
Although there is no universally agreed definition for the term added sugars, in general, it refers to sugars that are used as ingredients in processed and or prepared foods.
It is important to bear in mind that sugars that are naturally present in foods, for example, lactose and milk, they are not considered as added sugars because they are naturally present in that food.
However, when naturally occurring sugars are used as an added ingredient during food production, they are then classified as an added sugar.
So examples of added sugars would be syrups, sugars, and isolated and concentrated naturally occurring sugars, such as fruit juice concentrate.
Added sugars can be found in many types of foods, such as soft drinks, breads, cakes, jams, chocolates, and ice cream, as as sugars eaten separately or added to foods at the dinner table.
Since 2013, across the globe, the sugar content of foods and drinks launched on the market has progressively decreased year on year in general.
So as you can see from this chart here, in Europe since 2013, there have been small, but still reduced sugars.
In foods and products that have been launched, you can see in Latin America there have been significant decreases in the sugar content of food and drinks that have been launched since 2013.
Now to talk about sugar reduction activities across the globe, in the US, added sugar is now part of the nutrition facts panel.
The US and Canada are concerned with added sugars versus naturally occurring sugar.
Soda taxes and sugar taxes have been implemented at both state and county levels across the US.
In Latin America, both Mexico and Chile introduced sugar taxes.
Interestingly, Chile's approach is very advanced, with stop sign labels and positive reinforcement, with low tax and no levies on non sugary drinks.
When it comes to Europe, it is an interesting case.
Several countries have sugar taxes in place, with beverages generally being the main targeted category, but it's important to note that 2 countries actually stopped implementing their sugar tax.
And this is because of consumer behavior, which I'll talk about in a little while.
In the past few weeks, the Health Ministry of Spain actually announced that over 500 companies in Spain have pledged a 10% voluntary reduction in salt, sugar and fat in over 300 products, so taxes and reduced sugar production is not just coming from governments or public health bodies, but also from the food industry.
Then, when we look to Asia Pacific, including the island nations and territories, taxes on soft drinks have been implemented in the past number of years as.
So why are taxes being implemented?
There is a simple public health logic for a sugar tax, and it's this by implementing a sugar tax, the product price increases, which in turn should deter the consumer from purchasing that product, and that will lower the consumption of this high sugar product.
As a result, this reduced intake of calories is believed to positively impact on the incidence of obesity, diabetes, and other chronic diseases associated with excess sugar consumption.
The economic justification of sugar taxes is that illnesses from obesity add unnecessary costs to the government budget for national health systems.
But do sugar taxes work?
How do producers and consumers react to these taxes?
Several studies reported that the implementation of sugar soda taxes has reduced sugar consumption.
So from the slide you can see that both a study in Hungary and a study in Mexico reported that purchases of taxed products had declined, which as a result, declined in the consumption of these products.
However, there are two things to note these are only 2 studies, and the effectiveness of sugar taxes is still being debated today.
They are suggesting the general public and health professionals are saying that there is no clear cut evidence supporting it as a mechanism to influence consumer diet and consequently limit sugar intake.
Another note is that even if, for example, in Hungary and Mexico, sugar intake has decreased, the incidence of obesity is still increasing across the globe, including in Mexico and in Hungary.
So it's important to also highlight that sugar reduction does not necessarily equate to calorie reduction.
So why do taxes not always work?
A fundamental principle of economics is the law of demand the more expensive a product gets, the less demand there is for it.
However, this does not always happen, and sugar taxes have resulted in unexpected consumer behaviors and choice.
So sugar taxes have altered patterns in both the food industry as as the consumer behavior.
For example, consumers can just choose cheaper brands of the same product, meaning their intake of calories remains the same as before the tax.
Cross border shopping has been reported, where consumers will travel to a neighboring country to purchase the original product.
Companies can divide absorb the tax and increase at source themselves.
Consumers may simply adjust to pay more for the product due to brand loyalty and taste preferences.
So there is continuing and increasing pressure on implementing sugar reduction practices.
For example, Public Health England has targeted the UK food industry with reducing sugar in products by 20% by 2020, and EFSA will be providing scientific advice on the daily intake of added sugar in food by early 2020.
Food and drink manufacturers are being encouraged to consider 3 approaches to meeting sugar reduction targets, especially in the UK.
1 is reformulation to reduce the sugar content in the product.
2 is reduce portion size to lower total calorie and sugar content.
And 3 is reinvention to introduce healthy alternatives to incentivize consumers to buy these products.
Consumers interact with labels in 3 ways, and these 3 aspects are as important as successful reformulation to ensure consumer acceptance.
When it comes to labeling, consumers are now looking at front of pack and back of pack for information about the product.
When it comes to the ingredient deck, consumers lack trust about certain ingredients, so they check the ingredient deck to see what is present in the food product.
The consumer decides if something is acceptable for themselves.
Third, consumer education is key to removing barriers such as consumer misinformation and mistrust.
There are 3 factors that have been identified in this pillar, and that would be ingredients, sustainability, and nutrition.
Now we have a little quiz for you.
There are 2 products on the slide with a summary of their nutrient profile.
Label 1 has 10 g of sugar per 100 mL, 42 calories, 11 g of carbs, and zero protein.
Label 2 has 10 g of sugar, 49 calories, 14 g of carbs, and 0.3 g of protein.
Which product would you choose, given the information here?
Do you know which one is better for you?
Here's your answer.
Label one was carbonated soft drink, and label 2 was it 100 g of apple.
As you can see, these products are considered very different by the consumer, one as healthy and natural, and the other as an indulgence.
So what's important to consider is that when reformulating or formulating a product and focusing not just on sugar reduction but calorie reduction, don't forget to step back from the label and ask the following questions Does my product taste great?
Will it satisfy the consumer's hunger?
Will it help meet consumers' nutrient goals?
Will it offer fortification?
Consider portion size, and does the product contain added sugar?
So we have a question for you to answer were you able to tell which product was more helpful from the nutritional content on the label alone?
So as you can see, even though the nutrient contents of both products they looked very alike, very hard to differentiate from both, however, one was a carbonated soft drink, 100 mL, and the other was an apple, and it's important to note that most drinks come in 330 mL size, 500 mL, 1 L and 2 L.
So would you be able to stop drinking 100 mL of that drink, or would you drink the full portion that is purchased, which is 330 mL or greater?
So then moving on.
There is a holistic approach to tackling obesity.
So have sugar and soda taxes positively impacted on obesity across the globe?
To date, there is no evidence.
Now it is important to bear in mind that the taxes have recently been implemented in an awful lot of countries, so the evidence may show in a number of years' time.
However, currently there is no evidence because obesity is continually on the rise over the past two decades.
In 3 to 5 years' time we may have a different story.
It's important to highlight obesity is not solely caused by the excessive consumption of sugar.
It's a multifactorial issue, and the source of calories is key when it comes to tackling global obesity, as as education, reformulation, portion guidance, and portion downsizing.
So to conclude, Sugar taxes are here to stay for the time being.
It will take time to find out whether they really do work and have a positive impact on obesity.
For manufacturing, reformulation and reduced portion sizes are the two main areas of opportunity.
It is important to consider total calories and source of calories, which are the key drivers for healthier alternative options for the consumer.
And now Ashley, it's over to you.
Thank you very much, Aisling.
I'm going to talk about the challenges of reducing sugar and the specific challenges in different sectors covering bakery, children frozen desserts, and beverages.
In terms of consumer perception, the Mintel Purchase Intelligence data is very clear that low, no, or reduced sugar products that are labeled that way are perceived as healthier than standard sugar products, but standard sugar products are perceived as tastier, and we know from purchase intelligence data that taste is the predominant driver still for consumer health choice.
So any rational program to reduce sugar in finished products.
Has to bear in mind that taste is predominant and consumer perception, particularly around label claims, can be positive or negative, depending on the way the sugar reduction is presented.
In reducing sugar in foods, it's absolutely critical to understand that sugar is playing a multivariate, multifunctional, dynamic role in foods beyond taste and sweetness.
Even taking taste and sweetness, sugar is known to modulate and potentiate other flavors and other flavor perceptions, and sugar can also act as a masking for bitter flavors or sour flavors.
So in reducing sugar, building back via sugar replacers to get a sweetness perception is often not going to achieve a fully rebalanced flavor profile in all products.
Sugar can also be critical in binding water and controlling water activity for shelf life or functionality.
It also contributes solids which in turn can contribute texture and mouth feel.
Sugar is critical for color in cooked applications in baking via mallard reaction, but also via reducing reactions.
Crystallization and crystal structure of sugar is critical in some product applications such as hard candies or fudges, and it's important to bear in mind that sugar can also act as a solubilization and activation agent for other functional food components.
So if you think about hydrocholoid gel systems such as pectin.
They rely on sugar to activate them, so the effect of reducing sugar can also be to affect texture, can affect gel strength, can affect shelf life, and in frozen applications, sugar is critical in controlling the freezing point of frozen products.
So for formulators and product designers, we need to consider the organileptic properties which are going to be critical to drive consumer acceptance.
But we also need to think about the physical chemical properties of reducing sugar.
Such as the effect on viscosity, water activity, freezing point, and also the practical product functionality in terms of how the product will survive in the distribution chain, in the retailer and over shelf life.
Things like label claims, processability, cost being a critical component, regulatory compliance, and food safety are all interconnected and can be dependent upon the approach taken to reduce sugar in the product.
We now have a poll question for you, so please, as I'm talking, feel free to register a poll response against the options.
In terms of which area do you see as the biggest challenge for sugar reduction?
Savory snacks, prepared meals and appetizers, dairy such as yogurt, cheese, ice cream and dairy-based desserts, beverages, either hot, cold, alcoholic, non-alcoholic, dairy or nutritional, sweet confectioner in bakery or meat.
And as we'll go on when we look at some of the specific sector examples, the functionality of sugar and the challenges of reducing sugar can be very different in each of those different sectors of the food industry.
Turning now to look at bakery, sugar again has many functions in different bakery products, taste and sweetness and taste modulation, but also in terms of processability or handling.
For example, dryology and batter rheology can be critically dependent on sugar, reducing sugar, say, in a product that's baked from a batter can affect volume, can affect the self leveling and rheology and viscosity of the batter.
Sugar is critical, for example, in fermented bakery applications, and it can even be critical to final texture via an effect on gluten softening, for example, in biscuit applications.
Also for bakery, it's important to keep in mind there's a broad range of ancillary products that are used in bakery applications such as toppings, finishings, fillings, glazing agents, so things like cream alternatives, fillings, bake stable fillings, all of which also are critically dependent on sugar, often for their organoleptic and functional properties.
So if you were to consider the challenges of reducing sugar in bakery, we're talking about challenges of taste, process, texture, shelf life, and there are a number of different approaches by which the functional and organolptic properties of sugar can be built back into these products through a rational formulation approach.
So for taste, sweeteners and flavor modulators can be used, but it's important to mention, particularly in Europe and the UK, There are regulations that prohibit the use of high intensity sweeteners in stevia where they're restricted to the use in products that have no added sugar, so the palate of flavor modulators or sugar replacers may be more limited to people formulating in the bakery sector.
For processability to control, for example, batter or duology, starches, polysaccharides, and fibers can be used for texture and volume of finished products.
Emulsifier systems and structure such as protein can be used.
And for shelf life again, where shelf life can be quite a challenge, particularly for packaged bakery goods which may have an extended shelf life, we need effective ways to deliver mold-free shelf life.
And again, blends of humectant text fibers or clean label preservation systems can replace the shelf life extension effects of sugar.
And on the table we can see the various functional attributes that sugar is contributing to bakery, such as texture, batter, rheology, shelf life.
Bake stability and you can see that you would if you wanted to match all of those functionalities, you would need to use multiple technology solutions to build back the full functionality, depending on the degree of sugar that has been replaced in the product.
Looking now at the functionality of sugar in chilled and frozen desserts, again, taste is critical, and sugar can modulate dairy and fruit flavors which are typical in that sector.
Sugar is also critical in frozen desserts for freezing point depression and the control of ice crystal formation.
That's true for the dairy-based white mass, say, in an ice cream or Or a chilled cheesecake, but it's also true in sauces and variants that would be used in an ice cream when sugar is reduced in those and the freezing point increases, often you would end up moving from a soft, unctuous mouthfeel of a sauce to a more glass-like, brittle texture that would be unacceptable to the consumer.
Also, in terms of components, controlling water activity can be a clean label preservation benefit that sugar delivers.
So again, looking at sugar reduction in children's frozen desserts, we're looking to replace the taste aspect and delivery of sugar, but we also need to consider freezing point shelf life and texture.
And again there's a number of technology approaches that can be adopted to allow those functionalities to be rebalanced and replaced.
So texture systems, sectants, polysaccharides, fibers, gum-based carbohydrates and proteins can control freezing point and water activity.
And can also therefore also help shelf life.
Texture can be controlled and built back utilizing fiber, protein, and hydrocoli gel systems.
Again, looking at the table of the various functionalities that sugar is delivering in chilled frozen desserts, again we can see that to address all of those functionalities depending on the degree of sugar reduction targeted, often a multi-technology system approach would be needed to deliver a fully matched product when formulating a sugar reduced version of that product.
Turning to beverages again, sugar is critical in terms of taste and sweetness.
If you take the examples of coffee, which typically get quite a bitter taste.
Sugar is contributing sweetness, but it is also importantly masking some of the bitter notes of coffee to give a more balanced and consumer preferred flavor.
Texture is often singled out as being one of the biggest challenges for sugar reduction in beverages in terms of the mouth feel of the beverage.
And that then impacts the mouthfeel for the consumer.
In terms of how we can replace The functional benefits of sugar again, there's a variety of sugar replacers, polyols, flavor modulators, stevia, stevia glycosides which can build back sugar, but often a more tailored and subtle approach in terms of flavor design may be necessary to again rebalance the flavor fully.
Texture and mouth feel, and appearance can be rebalanced using a mixture of polysaccharides, gums, fibers, proteins, and appearance, I think is interesting.
It's maybe overlooked for beverage if we think about desserts or bakery, we think about volume, about a strong visual appeal of the finished product to the consumer.
But thinking also of products like blended ice, cocktail-based drinks, sugar contributes substantially to shine and gloss and can actually control the melting profile of blending ice.
So we need to consider the aesthetic, the visual impact that sugar has, and that can be built back in using hydrocoloids, using ingredients with a refractive index in solution to replace the aesthetic visual benefits that sugar is delivering.
So again on the table we're showing various functional aspects of sugar from sweetness, texture, shine gloss, the melting profile of a blended ice drink, and again you can see that various technologies would be needed in combination for a significant sugar reduction to replace all of the functionalities that that sugar is delivering in the finished product.
Turning now to sugar reduction versus calorie reduction, sometimes these are perceived as being synonymous, and they can be, but often they're not.
So it's very important for the product formulator to be clear on the target if the target is to reduce sugar content in a product or to reduce calorie content in a product or to reduce both sugar and calorie content in a product.
We can see on the right hand side of that slide that the calorie contribution from protein per gram is about the same as the calorie contribution of a typical sugar carbohydrate per gram.
So in bakery systems often where we're dealing with the substantial challenge of bulk replacement, so if you took a relatively high sugar content bakery product like an American style soft chewy cookie, that may be about 30% sugar.
Taking 30% of that sugar out means we must replace 10% of the bulk weight of the product.
Replacing that with protein will give you a blend of protein, texture systems, fibers, can give you a very matched product with a flavor modulator.
It will not reduce calories, but it will significantly reduce sugar.
But what you will have is a product with a much healthier quality of the calories that are in it.
So things like soluble fiber, fibers, proteins, hydrocoloids typically would be non-insulinogenic, non-kogenic, not contributing to tooth decay.
Low or no glycaemic index and actually have a positive nutritional.
So replacing sugars with protein and fiber may not massively reduce calories in a product, but will make the product nutritionally much better quality with a better quality of calorie sources.
It is possible, however, to reduce sugar and calories by utilizing things like fibers, polysaccharides that have a lower calorie content.
Or utilizing techniques such as aeration to reduce both sugar and calorie density to reduce the density, say, of solid confectionary products.
So it's important to be clear on the target, whether it's sugar reduction, calorie reduction, or both, and then adopt the correct formulation and technical approaches that will deliver those.
In summary, products fail if they don't work at every touch point throughout their life cycle.
So from component and ingredient supply through to the finished product manufacturer, the processing conversion through distribution through shelf life up to retail shelf life through retail.
And critically delivering the right consumer acceptance that the consumer is delighted by the product.
Similarly, there are practical aspects in terms of cost both to the manufacturer and the consumer, efficiencies of the manufacturing process, how robust the product is to the supply chain and supply chain economics.
Again, water activity control can be the difference between the need for chilled versus ambient supply chain distribution.
Label claims in the product description we know from the Intel data can either positively or adversely affect consumer perception and again critically consumer appeal.
Products that don't work at each of those touch points will likely not work in the marketplace.
And with that we'll now move over to the Q&A section where Aisling and I will be happy to answer your questions.
Thank you very much, Aisling for your very interesting presentations on this really topical field of of sugar reduction.
So now we're gonna get to a few questions.
I think there's lots of things to discuss here.
So if you have any further questions that you'd like to ask either of our speakers, please just send them through.
First we're going to go to the the results of our first polling question.
And this related to the What what can what the respondents thought about the actual , whether they were able to tell which product was more helpful from the, from the nutritional content, what we found that 62% of respondents were not able to to find this out.
Ashley, what, what are your, what are your thoughts on that on 62%?
Is that, is that a surprising figure, or did you even expect that to be higher?
Yes, Robin, I expected it to be higher actually, so we have a clever audience, listening today.
It's very hard to differentiate, products just looking at the calories and the sugar content.
You do have to look at the ingredient deck but also look at the, entire product itself, not just single out the sugar and the calories.
Do you have any thoughts on that Ashi?
No, I totally agree with that, and we're going to talk in answer to some of the other questions about formulation approaches that would either reduce sugar or reduce calories or reduce both and also consumer perception when they look at specific claims such as reduced sugar, that puts in mind of consumers.
OK, fair enough.
OK, I'll go through a few of the questions now that, that we, that we received, so one of the first ones was from, from Andreas Brugge, and it, it, it related to whether sugar reduction, is sugar reduction from the consumer customer expectation automatically linked to, to calorie reduction.
Do you, do you have any thoughts on that, Aisling?
Some customers, I think when they say sugar reduction, they automatically think that's calories are reduced in the product.
However, this is not always the case because other ingredients are used to replace sugar, and they may contribute to the calorie content of the product.
So it does not, so as I mentioned earlier in my presentation, sugar reduction does not equate to calorie, reduction.
However, consumers do seem to associate the two, that they're linked, but it is important to get that education piece out there that you have to look at the labels to actually determine whether overall calories are reduced in a product that claims the sugar is reduced.
Do you have anything to add to that, Ashley?
Yeah, absolutely.
We saw from the Mintel data that I referenced that consumers do have a perception that reduced sugar products are somewhat healthier, but they also have a perception that reduced sugar products can be slightly compromised in terms of flavor or appeal.
There's also data been published by the US FDA, which was quite clear that for the subset of consumers that don't look at the nutritional facts panel.
That group of consumers do by majority make inferences from sugar reduction claims and PACC about the health of the product or calorie reduction, which are not necessarily factual if you actually look at the nutritional panel of the product.
OK, thank you very much.
OK, a ques a question for Ashley here, maybe from, from Osor Idir.
How, how do you see the future of no added sugar products worldwide?
Do you think more companies are start producing these types of products?
I do see an, an increase in these products being manufactured, because there is an increasing demand from consumers for no added sugar in their food and drinks.
However, in time, I think this may change, and I hope it will change, that the focus will not just be on added sugar, that public health bodies and governments will make the right decision to focus on total calories and not just attribute the cause of obesity and other chronic diseases to a single nutrient.
So hopefully the shift will move from no added sugar products to healthier options that have better calorie content and improved sugar and fat content as.
Very good.
OK, I think a couple of more, a little bit more of a technical question now for, for Ashley from, Celia Breva.
Do you have any suggestions on balancing the clean label bulking deficit left by removing sugar?
How, how do you gauge the, the sensory perception of the consumer over time?
Will, will they get used to this, to this lower sugar impact?
Yeah, thanks.
I think that's that's a great question.
I think that can be one of the central technical challenges for reformulating products, particularly products I mentioned in the bakery section, where you have products that are relatively high in terms of their overall sugar content in the finished product.
So things like an American style cookie, which could be 30% sugar.
Things like a muffin, 10 to 15% sugar to make a significant reduction in sugar there, not only do you have to replace the negative impact in terms of sweetness to utilize sugar replacers for sweetness such as polyols or high intensity sweeteners or stevia, but you have to deal with the fact you've taken maybe 10, 12% of the total finished weight of the product out.
And in reformulating that, you need to be very mindful that the formulation approach, the product has to work in the manufacturing process and supply chain.
So if you took those bakery examples, you could probably replace the sweetness with a combination of sweeteners, but to replace the actual bulk of the product, you need to probably to look at a system of hydrocolides of gums, of fibers of proteins, which can all contribute to the bulk replacement.
But it has to be precisely accurate in terms of, for example, the batteryology for a cake or the dough handability of a baked product.
So often these can be quite complex formulation challenges, not just to reduce the sugar and the sweetness, but to have a dough with the same handling, to have a finished product of the same water activity, or to have a batter with the same rheology which when baked will give the same volume to a product, I think.
It's a really good question.
And often the approach will have to be a system approach combining multiple technologies to replace all of the different functions that sugar is playing in those products.
That's very interesting.
OK, now I, I guess, I guess something else a little bit in line with the with the same kind of strange train of thought question here, actually from Janice Noonan.
It, it, it has always come back to the same problem with recipes.
You take out something and you're gonna need to put something back in.
What, what, what are you going to do with, where you're replacing sugar with that going to cause the issues with people's health?
Yeah, absolutely.
So again, depending on the actual finished product that you're trying to reformulate, the extent of this technical challenge may vary.
If you have a product that is relatively low in sugar, and the sugar has a limited number of functionalities, so if you'd say a beverage with a low level of sugar, it may be possible to replace that sugar with an alternative sweetener to give a matched flavor profile.
And you know a relatively minor tweak to the formulation, perhaps adding pectin or a protein, will give a matched mouthfeel.
If you have a product that's much higher in sugar and the sugar is critical, say, in an ice cream or chilled dessert, not only to sweetness, but also to the modulation of perception of other flavors.
So there may be fruit flavors or dairy flavors present in that product.
The sugar is also critical to the freezing point depression.
And ice crystal control.
So in replacing sugar there, you need to again replace all of the functionalities and select from a palette of alternative technologies which will enhance the overall healthfulness or nutritional profile of the product.
Thanks very much, Ashley.
Yeah, we, we just got the results of our, our second polling question, and if you recall, what the question was, was which area do you see is the biggest challenge for sugar reduction, you can choose between savory snacks, prepared meals, dairy, beverages, sweet confectiony and bakery, and, meat.
So, so 6 different categories.
And what's interesting is, and perhaps not so surprising that it was completely dominated by sweet confectiony and beverages categories.
So 64% of respondents said that sweet confectionery forms the the biggest challenge for them, and 90% responded to beverages.
Maybe, maybe Ashley, do you have any comments on that, are you surprised to me that makes total sense.
Obviously I wouldn't downplay the technical challenges in the other categories like frozen desserts or bakery, but I think for certain types of sweet confectionery, the amount of sugar in those products can be the highest looking across categories.
So if you looked at a solid confectionery, things like toffees or fudge, there's a very high level of sugar.
The sugar is absolutely critical to the mouthfeel, to the actual physical structure of the product.
In some of those products they're somewhat unusual in terms of the physical form and function of the sugar in that you have a crystallized sugar which is giving the physical structure to those solid confectionary products.
Reducing sugar there really starts to impact on the physical structure of the product.
And replacing with fiber or protein may not give the same like a draggy, the same sort of glass-like texture.
Replacing sugar in a fudge product again you may impact the crystal structure.
Those type of products will be very technically challenging to replace the functionality of the sugar in terms of mouthfeel, the physical structure of the product.
For beverage, I guess one of the biggest challenges that's been called out is texture, and that may surprise people in terms of they would maybe think sugar dissolved in a beverage is contributing sweetness, but in actual fact, sugar is critical to texture perception, mouth feel, a sort of unctuous perception of a beverage product, and again, there again, you may want to look at a multi-technology approach and clean label options, but things like say pectin.
Which is fruit derived label label derivation can be used to compensate for the reduction in mouth feel.
Protein and soluble fibers also can be used in beverage, but again, depending on the amount of sugar being reduced, you may need to look at flavor modulation or flavor masking.
High levels of protein will bring bitterness and even pectin itself, if you took out all of the sugar from a beverage.
Pectin will be quite ineffective, particularly a high ester pectin, will be quite less effective in terms of the gel that it forms and therefore its ability to replace mouthfeel.
So it doesn't surprise me that those two categories came out as the biggest challenges.
I think those are known, but again, I'd say also in frozen desserts, bakery, savory, you know, some of the same challenges exist.
Thanks very much, Ashley.
Would you have any comments on that, on that, Ashley?
No, I, I agree with them, Ashley, in terms of technical challenges.
I think as if there is a challenge in, consumer perception as for those areas, especially sweets and confectionery, that even though there's reduced sugar or low or no sugars, still consumers are looking at them as a sweet snack.
So, but Having a no or low added sugar in a sweets and confectionery is definitely considered more positive than the full sugar alternative.
Just thinking about the beverage point there if I may, again, we're focusing naturally on sugar, sugar replacement, but if you took a step back and just looked at sugar reduction, there's also a formulation approach to optimize the functionality or the contribution of the type of sugars that you're utilizing.
So for example, we would all know that sucrose, glucose and fructose.
Differ in their relative sweetness.
They differ in their water binding and water activity control, and they differ in their solid contribution.
So for a beverage application, fructose would be quite interesting in terms of fructose would normally be considered to be sweeter than sucrose.
That actually changes with temperature.
So at lower temperatures, if you had a blended ice beverage.
Fructose would be much relatively sweeter than sucrose, and the relative difference increases at the lower temperature.
If you had a hot beverage like a coffee 5060 degrees, actually fructose is less sweetly perceived, so sugar reduction could also be about considering what the right type or the most functionally effective type of sugar can be that would allow you to formulate with the minimum amount of sugar to start with.
And or looking at sugar replacement technologies.
Very good.
OK.
We just have time for a few more questions now.
Maybe just another question for Aisling from, from Jack Mano just to clarify one point here.
Are, are all fruit juice concentrates considered added sugars, even if they're used as a single strength juice?
This is an interesting question.
So As I mentioned in my presentation earlier, there's no, universally agreed definition on added sugars.
However, in relation to the US FDA, they, with their nutrition facts panel, they have excluded the definition, fruit and vegetable juices that are concentrated from 100% fruit juice that is sold to consumers.
This is excluded from their added sugars definition, whereas sugars from concentrated fruit or vegetable juices.
That are in excess of what would be expected from the same volume of pure fruit or vegetable juice are included in the definition.
So, it would be good if the person is actually referring to the US it would be good to look at the US FDA website where they do talk about the nutrition nutrition facts panel and the terminology for added sugars.
Very good.
OK, the very final question now we have time for, I think a very interesting one maybe also for you, Aisling, from Michael Mustard, and it's, the UK is now focusing specifically on sugar reduction.
Do you think it will evolve into calorie reduction in a couple of years' time, because according to me, they're not really aware of the meaning of sugar reduction.
And I think that's, I think it's a very interesting point because you always, you often hear also on TV many of the presenters who speak about, for example, a, a full, a full fat Coke rather than a, a sugar reduced or.
Full sugar Coke, for example, that there's there's often just a lack of lack of understanding, shall we say.
Yes, and actually it's happening already.
For example, in the UK, the Public Health England are publishing their one year sugar report after Easter.
They will also be highlighting and discussing calorie caps in this report.
So they are looking at total calories for different, eating stages throughout the day.
So we are looking forward to this report to see what they're going to, recommend in terms of total calories.
And following on from this, then we have the scientific advisory Committee on Nutrition.
They are looking at fats and human health, and they will be publishing a report, I think it's around in quarter 1, 2019.
And from this, Public Health England will look to set maybe another fat tax but also recommendations on fat reduction.
Across different food categories as.
So calorie content is being focused on in the UK and this may actually have a domino effect in other countries across the globe.
Because I think there's an awful lot of pressure, even, even pressure now about the kind of a similar sugar tax on confectionary products.
Is, is that right?
Is that something that you think is, is plausible and may, may, may in fact happen going forward?
For confectionery, that's one of the categories that they have.
Public Health England, for example, has, set a sugar reduction program on various categories, up to 13 categories, and confectionery is one of them.
In terms of a confectionery tax, I, it depends on the level of consumption in the country and the region.
So why taxes were focused on beverages is because beverages were the highest source of added sugars in the diet, and that's why they were the focus.
So if confectionery is the second highest source of added sugars in the human diet for a region, it would make sense then maybe to move towards a sugar tax.
However, It is important to Note that with all these sugar taxes, obesity is still on the increase.
However, it is important for the food industry and drinks industry to reformulate because not only for legislation, but they are reformulating anyway because they feel they have a level of responsibility on public health.
OK, very good, thanks very much.
That, that would certainly be something to look out for going forward now.
So thanks very much to both Aisling I heard and Ashley Baker of of of Kerry unfortunately we didn't have time to answer all the questions today but anything that wasn't answered, Kerry we'll we'll get, we'll get back to you regarding it in in in the near future so.
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