Achieving the perfect balance of sweetness, texture, and structural integrity requires a nuanced approach that traditional sugar alternatives often struggle to fulfill. However, we’re now seeing manufacturers rise to the challenge and close the sugar reduction gap in baking.

The emergence of stick packs in the hydration category is driven by consumer demand for convenience, functionality, sustainability, and “better-for you” options. The future of hydration beverages shows no signs of slowing, catering to diverse lifestyles and preferences while promoting overall health and wellness.

Effective sugar reduction in a formula with sugar substitutes like stevia, monk fruit, erythritol and allulose is not only about replacing the sweetness of sugar, but also replacing its bulk. This is particularly important for applications such as baked goods, desserts, and confections where the product’s size would be considerably smaller without the addition of bulking ingredients and bulking agents.

Monk fruit, also known as Siraitia grosvenorii or Lo Han Guo, is a natural high-potency sweetener that is 100 – 250 times as sweet as sugar. It’s an ingredient commonly used by food & beverage product manufacturers for sugar reduction and replacement. When developing a product formulation with monk fruit extract, there are important considerations for formulators to keep in mind.

Substituting sugar in a bar is much more complicated than substituting sugar in a beverage. A hurdle when reformulating a bar is the need to maintain a 100% formula. One change in an ingredient’s percentage necessitates a need to change the percentage of the other ingredients in the formula.