Sugar reduction by stealth – part 2

In the arti­cle Stop brag­ging – reduce sug­ar by stealth! we inves­ti­gat­ed how sug­ar reduc­tion can seri­ous­ly have a break­through with the large mass of con­sumers. Food pro­duc­ers should stop brag­ging that they are reduc­ing unhealthy ingre­di­ents but still reduc­ing. By stealth. In this arti­cle, we focus on how it can be done, but we also draw par­al­lels to what we have writ­ten in oth­er arti­cles. However, let’s start off with a dilemma.

A dilemma

A dilem­ma that many food pro­duc­ers face is an aver­sion to jeop­ar­dize the orig­i­nal prod­uct. What do we mean by that? Well, a com­mon sce­nario is that you have an orig­i­nal prod­uct that has been around for a long time, maybe sev­er­al decades, and that sells well. From time to time you try an alter­na­tive ver­sion, per­haps with oth­er flavours and oth­er ingre­di­ents, often some form of ‘light’ version.

And it’s fine to put these alter­na­tive prod­ucts at stake. But you rarely take any risks with the orig­i­nal prod­uct. And why would you? The orig­i­nal prod­uct often accounts for the major­i­ty of sales, it sells well and is in demand by con­sumers. Why risk it?

Let’s return to the answer to that ques­tion short­ly. First, we have to repeat the top­ic of reduc­ing by stealth and take a clos­er look at why food pro­duc­ers should reduce sug­ar now.

Sugar reduction by stealth

In the pre­vi­ous arti­cle Stop brag­ging – sug­ar reduce the sly! we learned that an effec­tive way to reduce unhealthy ingre­di­ents is to reduce by stealth. In this way, we can seri­ous­ly reach out with sug­ar-reduced prod­ucts on a broad front.

Three insights

In the arti­cle The time for sug­ar reduc­tion is now we come to three insights that gov­ern why sug­ar reduc­tion should be prioritized:

• Pressure from leg­is­la­tion and com­peti­tors (e.g sug­ar tax) cre­ates incen­tives for food pro­duc­ers to put sug­ar reduc­tion high on the agenda.
• Consumers love sweet­ness but want to get rid of the neg­a­tive aspects of sug­ar. They are also becom­ing more health-con­scious and increas­ing­ly inter­est­ed in ingre­di­ents of nat­ur­al origin.
• The solu­tion for food pro­duc­ers is to invest in the devel­op­ment and inno­va­tion of new solu­tions with nat­ur­al ori­gins but which also offer sweet­ness, taste and mouthfeel.

A summary

Let’s stop and pon­der what we’ve been through.

The argu­ments above (the three insights) show why sug­ar reduc­tion should be a pri­or­i­ty. We know that an appro­pri­ate strat­e­gy to get more peo­ple to con­sume health­i­er prod­ucts is to reduce by stealth. But for sug­ar reduc­tion to have an effect on a broad front and be cred­i­ble, it should take place in orig­i­nal prod­ucts and not just in light alter­na­tives. The three insights show that sug­ar reduc­tion is desir­able, but also that there are solu­tions with­in reach that enable high-qual­i­ty sug­ar-reduced prod­ucts – as long as you are open to devel­op­ment and innovation.

In the light of these insights, it is per­haps no longer a scary thought to start secret­ly reduc­ing the orig­i­nal product?

Let’s see how this can be done.

Heinz

In the pre­vi­ous arti­cle Stop brag­ging – reduce sug­ar by stealth! we cit­ed Heinz as an exam­ple. Since the mid-1980s, they have been active­ly work­ing to reduce sug­ar and salt in their prod­ucts; for exam­ple, their clas­sic toma­to ketchup has under­gone a 40 per cent reduc­tion in salt.

But this reduc­tion has been done step by step. The chal­lenge is that con­sumers must not notice the reduc­tion. If the reduc­tion is too vast and occurs infre­quent­ly, there is a risk that con­sumers’ taste buds will not keep up with the changes. Care and con­ti­nu­ity are the watchwords.

But at the same time, you must not reduce too lit­tle. Opinion lead­ers, inter­est groups, dieti­tians and oth­ers may begin to won­der why you only make changes to the mar­gin. That’s not good either.

Further development

But how much salt can Heinz real­ly reduce with­out sac­ri­fic­ing taste and mouthfeel?

It can be said that Heinz has come to a cross­road. Ambitious inter­nal require­ments and goals have led to a deci­sion to reduce fur­ther. But in order to not sac­ri­fice taste and mouth­feel, Heinz needs to find some­thing that can replace the salt.

That is why Heinz works active­ly with inno­va­tion, such as fer­men­ta­tion, to find solu­tions that offer the same taste and mouth­feel. The goal, accord­ing to Heinz, will nev­er be to find a solu­tion that replaces salt one hun­dred per cent. It’s still about reduction.

You can read more about Heinz in this arti­cle in Food Navigator.

A crossroad

When it comes to reduc­ing sug­ar, there is the same prob­lem – or oppor­tu­ni­ty if you will.

In the end, food pro­duc­ers will inevitably come to a cross­road. Either they can stop reduc­ing and thus being forced to stay at a cer­tain lev­el, to not jeop­ar­dize the taste expe­ri­ence. Or they can con­tin­ue to reduce by adding some­thing else that can replace the lost sug­ar, salt or what­ev­er it may be.

The big ques­tion is what this ‘some­thing else’ could be?

To replace sugar

Replacing sug­ar means to replace sev­er­al things. Sugar not only pro­vides sweet­ness, but it also gives the right taste and mouth­feel; It has bulk­ing prop­er­ties and adds vol­ume to food.

Therefore, this ‘some­thing else’ must offer all this; it must give the right taste, flavour, tex­ture and bulk. But at the same time, it must also pro­vide few­er calo­ries and have a low­er impact on blood sug­ar lev­els than reg­u­lar sugar.

But even that is not enough.

Consumer preferences

As con­sumers turn to the nat­ur­al and free-from, the ingre­di­ents in mod­ern sug­ar reduc­tion must also be flaw­less. There are many exam­ples of arti­fi­cial sweet­en­ers that have seen scan­dals and been met with sus­pi­cion from the pub­lic. Whether there is truth behind the rumours or not, the dam­age has already been done; a rep­u­ta­tion is easy to get but hard to get rid of.

To reduce and replace sug­ar, you need some­thing that pro­vides both sweet­ness and taste, bulk and vol­ume, but which also has a nat­ur­al ori­gin, has few­er calo­ries and less effect on blood sug­ar lev­els as ordi­nary sugar.

Sweetened fibres

We call our solu­tion sweet­ened fibres. It is a com­bi­na­tion of sug­ar alco­hols, ste­vi­ol gly­co­sides and dietary fibres. Together, these ingre­di­ents can replace sug­ar 1: 1. Sweetened fibres come in dif­fer­ent vari­eties for dif­fer­ent types of foods.