Sugar reduction is an urgent issue - and new texturising systems provide the answer

摘要

Sugar reduction in foods is a topic of great interest around the world. In Germany, retailers are advertising the lower sugar content of their house brands. In Great Britain, since April of this year there has been a sugar tax on soft drinks. In other European as well as Latin American countries, nutrition traffic lights on packaging alert consumers to the sugar percentage in foods. In India, regulation to this effect is currently being finalised. The main driver for all this activity is the ominous increase in obesity on all continents, that is increasingly being linked to high sugar consumption. It is therefore no surprise that the number of sugar-reduced or sugar-free products is growing rapidly around the world. In just the past five years the number of product launches has more than doubled, from just under 5000 in 2012 to over 10,000 in 2017 worldwide. Soft drinks and dairy products are among the fastest-growing categories. This growth is set to continue, as obesity is a key risk factor for cardiovascular diseases that are a major strain on healthcare systems, and more and more governments are devoting attention to the issue. The new need is "low sugar," and new solutions from retailers and industry are in higher demand than ever.