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Sweeteners are a complex category of ingredients. Few other natural sweeteners, some of which occur in plants, can claim this kind of differentiation between adding calories to food and containing no calories at all.
HealthFocus International has studied sugar and sweeteners globally and regionally to help companies better understand buyers' motivations and attitudes toward sweetener solutions.
Globally, most consumers (55%) are concerned about their sugar intake, and reducing sugar is the biggest dietary trend globally, according to a report sent to Food Dive.
Sugar has long been a staple for manufacturers, adding sweetness, flavor and texture to foods and beverages. As consumers continue to look for sugar alternatives, ingredient suppliers are looking for sweetener options that taste like sugar without the unwanted additives.
According to the report, while stevia and monk fruit are growing in popularity, other natural alternatives are also being discovered, improved and introduced into the category.
For example, Sweet Protein is currently getting a lot of media attention. The name refers to the chemical structure of a plant compound used as a sweetener, and the way it is digested means that it “does not affect blood sugar and has less potential for gastrointestinal side effects than other non-calorie natural sweeteners.”
Brazzein, extracted from the Oubly fruit, which is native to West Africa, received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) early this year and gained popularity under the Oubly brand. Industry giants have been using tomatine solutions for decades, and a company called MycoTechnology has created a Hungarian honey truffle sweetener that is 2,500 times sweeter than sugar.
Although most consumers are trying to reduce their sugar intake, concerns are growing about the safety of artificial sweeteners, the report said.
“This makes it impossible for manufacturers to please all consumers and highlights the need to be clear about which consumers are best targeted by their products,” said Cali Amos, director of human insights at HealthFocus International.
The report found that avoiding artificial sweeteners has consistently ranked lower than avoiding sugar in terms of recent changes in priorities. “This may seem like a bigger concern about sugar than artificial sweeteners, but it’s more subtle than that,” the report said.
For example, 96% of consumers use sugar, while only 77% use artificial sweeteners. This means that far fewer consumers are able to reduce or avoid artificial sweeteners than actually consume sugar.
“It is much easier for consumers to visualize ‘less sugar’ than ‘less artificial sweeteners.’ Additionally, while ‘cutting down on sugar’ is a familiar phrase to shoppers, the latter is not. For consumers, artificial sweeteners are either present or not. Sugar has a certain level of content that artificial sweeteners don’t,” Angela Johnson, Diet and Nutrition Insights Manager at HealthFocus International, said in the report.
As more food and beverage products are sweetened with natural alternatives such as monk fruit and stevia, these ingredients are expected to be adopted as options for natural low-calorie sweeteners. Companies like better-for-you candy brand Smart Sweets, healthier soft drink company Olipop, and Chobani, which sells the Chobani Complete Greek Yogurt smoothie, are already using these ingredients.
“There is significant industry investment in both (stevia and monkfruit), with efforts being made to increase processing efficiency, improve taste and expand production,” the report said.
Other natural sweeteners, such as xylitol, erythritol and allulose, which occur naturally in various plants, have been much less popular with consumers, the report said.
“Most of this is likely due to the name evoking artificial sweeteners, but some consumers may also be turned off by the complex processing methods, which is true even for sugar-focused consumers.”
Products like Three Wishes cereal, Super Coffee, Koia, and Enlightened ice cream all use these types of ingredients.
The report found that overall, consumer confidence largely depends on how ingredients are labeled.
“Except for honey and fruit juice (which most say is ‘good’) and artificial sweeteners (which most say are ‘bad’), the largest proportion of consumers feel that sweeteners are ‘neither good nor bad,’” the report said. It was revealed.
