Subscribe for the latest consumer trends, trade news, nutrition science and regulatory updates in the food & beverage industry!
Join 30,000+ members. Yes, it's completely free.
Sugar is back on the menu in moderation
The beverage industry is shifting towards moderate sugar intake, with companies innovating to reduce sugar content while preserving flavor and consumer satisfaction. By blending alternative sweeteners like allulose and honey, product developers are striking a balance between health and taste.
4 Min Read
At a Glance
- Instead of choices between high-sugar and zero-sugar options, brands are now focusing on beverages with moderate sugar.
- Beverage formulators are exploring sweeteners like allulose, which mimics sugar’s taste while reducing overall sugar grams.
- Brands are finding ways to maximize sugar’s flavor-enhancing properties while minimizing its quantity, such as using honey.
Look in old-school drink cases and you may be led to believe that sugar is an all-or-nothing ingredient. Either a sweetened beverage is packed with 20-30 g or more or it contains none at all and is totally reliant on caloric sweeteners. One is normal or “original,” the other announces itself as “zero” or “diet.”
But some drink experts say this dichotomy is on the verge of becoming a thing of the past. Many consumers are thinking more in terms of moderate sugar intake rather than total elimination, opening the door to a blended approach that puts sugar back on the “approved” list — within reason, of course.
‘An acceptable, healthful limit of sugar’
While traditional big name sodas still tend to ride the seesaw, the new generation of wellness beverages are exploring every inch of the space between. This market is where much of the innovation in low-sugar sweetening is happening, according to Dalton Honoré, a longtime product developer and formulator, who spoke at the 2024 SupplySide West session, “The science behind functional beverages: Innovate and differentiate next-gen drinks.”
“I think that we’re getting to a place where we recognize an acceptable, healthful limit of sugar,” Honoré said during the panel discussion. “Sugar reduction is something that is still top of mind, but I don’t think that completely eliminating sugar is where the industry is headed anymore.”
The question, of course, is what that “acceptable limit” looks like per serving. A can of Dreamland Koffucha, the fermented coffee beverage brand that Honoré founded in 2021, contains 8 g of sugar from a combination of cane sugar and cold-pressed juice. A can of high-fiber soda like Poppi is often more like 4-5 g per serving. And judging by the labels of the vanguard-pushing functional beverages in one of SupplySide Food & Beverage Journal’s new features, The Game Changers: 10 wellness beverage brands upgrading the drink case, the trend is to keep sugar content squarely in the single digits.
How do formulators pull off this magic trick? One way is by searching out sugar’s most willing dance partners.
Stretching sugar with allulose
According to beverage entrepreneur and bioengineering researcher Jeffrey Dietrich, Ph.D., sugar isn’t going away completely for the simple reason that it’s what’s usually driving us to drink beverages in the first place.
“Historically, beverages have been really a conduit to buy sugar and sweetness,” he said. “I think we’ve played around as an industry with a lot of different things — erythritol, xylitol, stevia extract — to kind of try to address some of the [sugar] desire. But in many cases, they don’t really quite hit the mark. We’re starting to see compounds that are a little bit more interesting.”
An example he highlighted is allulose, a fructose-derived prebiotic that is common in high-fiber, nostalgically flavored sodas. “It’s a very, very close match [to sugar] from a flavor profile,” Dietrich explained. And it definitely doesn’t hurt that FDA ruled in 2020 that allulose doesn’t need to be counted as an “added sugar” on a nutritional label.
Of course, allulose also has its downsides. In higher doses, it can cause digestive distress, and in any amount, it’s more expensive compared to other sweeteners. Dietrich said he anticipates the price of allulose to decrease over time in order to meet demand. But that’s a big reason why it’s often blended with just a touch of sugar or other sweeteners.
Is there a minimum effective dose of sugar?
Lurking in the background of this is a question: How low can you go with sugar while still getting the benefits it brings? When it comes to flavoring or masking bitterness — both from functional ingredients and alcohol — the original is still tough to beat.
“It is still the most flavorful sweetener and also the best carrier of many things in a sweetening and flavoring and formulation process,” Steven Fleischauer, beverage formulator and manager of special projects at Flavorman, said. “So, it still has its place in this world, in moderation.”
Moderation was a theme echoed by many on the SupplySide West show floor, where sweetener manufacturers agreed that sugar is still very much on the table. Product makers, they say, are simply searching for new ways to keep those grams low.
For example, they could opt for sugar variations that bring slightly more sweetness per unit of weight, such as honey. Nick Kenney, development manager at GloryBee, said demand for honey-based sweeteners has consistently increased over the last decade, and a big reason is that it’s such an efficient delivery vehicle.
“When honey is used in a formulation, it’s pretty low,” he said. “It really doesn’t take a lot to dramatically enhance flavor. If you see formulas with 10-plus percentage of honey, that’s really high.”
Fleischauer anticipates spending plenty of time in the next few years further exploring how to make a little sugar go a long way, rather than looking for alternatives. The reason is simple: “Even just one gram versus no grams absolutely makes a taste difference,” he said.
About the Author
You May Also Like