The 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines and the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) new Nutrition Facts label, in conjunction with continued consumer demand for transparency, less sugar and clean-label products, have resulted in an increased demand for natural, non-caloric, high-intensity sweeteners (HIS), like stevia, monk fruit and erythritol. These ingredients now are garnering more attention from beverage-makers looking to reduce or eliminate sugar in their products.

“Attempts to reduce sugar consumption have been the trend in recent years,” explains Akshay Kumar Anugu, associate at Ingredion Inc., Westchester, Ill. “Several countries are not only educating citizens about their consumption of caloric-sweetened food products, but are also providing disincentives through regulations, taxes and prohibitions. Growing natural and organic trends have also prompted some beverage manufacturers to focus their product development efforts toward clean-label and/or natural sweeteners for replacing added sugars. These trends have opened a tailor-made gap for high-intensity natural sweeteners such as stevia and monk fruit extracts across the world.”

Andy Ohmes, global commercial manager for high-intensity sweeteners at Minneapolis-based Cargill, expects these trends to continue. “Sugar reduction in beverages will continue to be a hot topic driven by a combination of factors, including evolving consumer attitudes around sweetness intensity and sweeteners of choice, global regulations and taxation on the sugar content of beverages and upcoming changes to the Nutrition Facts panel in the United States,” he says.

Mark Rainey, vice president of global food marketing with Chicago-based Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), adds that clean-label trends have been impacting the sweetener market.

“Demand for lower-calorie sweeteners from natural sources continues to be driven by consumers who are seeking products with recognizable, natural and fewer ingredients on the label,” he says. “There is no single solution for sweeteners. Our goal is to help customers address added sugar and clean-label improvements while at the same time finding solutions to the potential product development challenges of taste, cost, calories, labeling.”

Although consumer demand remains an inherent factor in developers switching to natural HIS solutions, the Dietary Guidelines and FDA’s new Nutrition Facts label also could contribute to a growth in usage, experts say.

“The Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends limiting the use of sweeteners and having provided recommendations surrounding added-sugar intake,” explains Satya Jonnalagadda, director of nutrition at Kerry Ingredients, Beloit, Wis. “Additionally, the upcoming regulation changes to the Nutrition Facts panel labels will require manufacturers to declare the amount of added sugar in a product. We are even seeing some cities implement a sugar or soda tax.

“All of these activities in the policy arena, compounded with nutrition science evidence, have resulted in consumers paying closer attention to their sugar intake and added sugar in their foods,” she continues. “In order to satisfy consumers, food and beverage manufacturers have made commitments to reduce sugar content, including added sugars, in their products as well as pledging to use natural sweetener solutions, like stevia or monk fruit.”

Mel Jackson, chief officer of science at Bellingham, Wash.-based Sweet Green Fields, notes that the Added Sugars section will enable consumers to be more informed. “The fact that added sugar will be clearly indicated in the new labeling format, consumers are going to be much better informed about the amount of sugar they are consuming, and so I think they will look to move to beverages that have less of a sugar impact. Natural HIS will definitely benefit from this change.”

In line with the growth in demand, Ingredion’s Anugu notes that ingredient suppliers are innovating with these sweeteners to provide sugar reductions at many levels.

“Next generation sweeteners such as Rebaudioside M (another steviol glycoside from [the] stevia leaf) and allulose (a rare sugar) can help achieve higher sugar-replacement targets,” Anugu says. “Ingredion’s Rebaudioside M is a clean-tasting steviol glycoside used to help replace high amounts of sugar in beverages.”

Sweet Green Fields’ Jackson adds that ingredient suppliers and beverage formulators have made strides to provide higher-quality products sweetened with natural HIS. “In general, beverage-makers have looked initially at sugar-reduction targets for their beverages for a number of reasons,” he explains. “First, they have taken time to get used to the optimal ways to formulate with stevia and other natural HIS to reduce sugar without compromising taste. In addition, and in concert with this notion, stevia extracts, in particular, have become better tasting, and makers and consumers of beverages have slowly adapted to the lower-calorie environment to the point where, in some cases and for some market segments, diet beverages made with the new generation of natural HIS are now becoming accepted.”

Stevia evolution

Reducing or eliminating sugars is not always an easy task, but some challenges can be overcome by the use of stevia, according to Carol May, president of Gilbert, Ariz.-based Wisdom Natural Brands, makers of SweetLeaf Stevia Sweetener. “Reducing and/or eliminating added and hidden sugars from the American diet poses a challenge for consumers, health professionals, and manufacturers of foods and beverages alike,” she says. “… Stevia is an excellent alternative sweetener to sugar.”

She notes that there are a variety of stevia forms and combinations thereof that can benefit beverage formulations.

Carolyn Clark, director of global marketing at PureCircle, Oak Brook, Ill., says that as stevia’s use has increased, ingredient suppliers have been able to innovate and expand their stevia offerings.

“With so many different types of sweet-tasting molecules (steviol glycosides) from the leaves of the stevia plant, companies can really find the perfect custom stevia solution that works for them and create a product that will make consumers happy,” she says.

Suppliers also are using their research and development departments to create solutions that address common formulation challenges, explains John Martin, senior director of global technical innovation at PureCircle. “Using stevia in beverages has been traditionally challenging because beverages have a high sweetness max, and using stevia to get to that sweetness level often leaves an aftertaste or linger,” he explains. “At PureCircle, we’ve recently launched Sigma-Beverage, a stevia ingredient that is perfect for the beverage sweetener system because it really addresses this high sweetness challenge and overcomes it.

“Additionally, PureCircle’s Zeta Family, which is comprised of premium, sugar-like steviol glycosides, offers additional solutions for overcoming taste challenges,” he continues. “We are far beyond the days of Reb A-only solutions and can provide formulators with so many more options now to fit their needs.”

Cargill’s Ohmes echoes similar sentiments. “With the early Reb A-only stevia sweeteners, developers were focused on managing aftertastes, such as bitterness, metallic or licorice notes,” he says. “Given the huge leap forward in [the] quality of sweetness, today’s next-generation stevia products give developers more versatility in their quest to create great-tasting, reduced-sugar beverages.”

Yet, Reb A stevia still can provide solutions for beverage-makers, Ohmes says. “Traditional high-purity Rebaudioside A (RA95, RA80, RA50) stevia products still have a place in reformulation efforts,” he says. “Depending on the application, these can be effectively used to replace 15 to 25 percent of the sugar in a beverage.”

Benefits of blending

As these natural, HIS solutions garner more attention from beverage-makers, the benefits of combining stevia with erythritol and/or monk fruit extracts are becoming more evident, experts say.

“With continued pressure to reduce sugar and calories in food and beverages, maximizing sweetness intensity without compromising quality has become the critical taste hurdle,” Cargill’s Ohmes explains. “Sweetener combinations can be very useful to achieve greater sweetness intensity, improved sweetness quality and even optimizing formulation costs.

“... The most successful reduced-sugar beverages are designed to optimize sweetness, replace the mouthfeel of sugar solids and, occasionally, manage minor aftertastes,” he continues.

Thom King, founder and chief executive officer of Portland, Ore.-based Steviva Ingredients, notes that stevia-erythritol blends are becoming a go-to natural sweetening solution. “This combination has a very nice, neutral flavor profile that pairs perfectly with most flavors, but particularly well with citrus,” he says. “We have had amazing luck with a stevia, monk fruit and erythritol blend.”

He notes that blends can benefit zero-calorie goals as well as sugar-reduction goals. “Zero-calorie goals can be easily achieved with a stevia-and-erythritol blend and/or a stevia-monk fruit-and-erythritol blend,” he says. “… Additionally, if the goal is simply sugar reduction, combining nutritive sweeteners, such as sugar, agave or fructose, with [a] stevia-and-erythritol blend and/or stevia-monk fruit-and-erythritol blend can deliver up to 70 percent clean-label sugar reduction and deliver a brilliant flavor profile with a fantastic mouthfeel.”

Although experts note that some of the aforementioned blends might not require masking, this formulation step often plays a role when formulating with natural HIS. “These alternative sweeteners typically have a different temporal profile than real sugar,” explains John Buckley, vice president of taste innovation at Kerry Ingredients. “... Often times, these natural sweeteners also have off-tastes that can linger on the palate. Masking technology may be employed to ‘clip’ lingering sweetness and to mitigate off-tastes that consumers may describe as metallic, astringent or bitter.”

Kerry offers its TasteSense portfolio, which features a variety of solutions that help hide or disguise any non-desirable attributes, while enhancing those that are desired, adds Renata Ibarra, senior research, development and applications director of taste at Kerry.

Bob Verdi, business director of health and wellness at Virginia Dare, Brooklyn, N.Y., highlights the unique characteristics that sugar provides to beverage formulations and notes the challenges beverage-makers encounter in efforts to create a perception that is close to sugar without the offnotes.

“Virginia Dare has a long history in the development and application of flavor-masking systems,” he says. “The use of natural flavor-masking systems in alternative-sweetener beverages can bring the sweetness taste profile closer to that of sugar and suppress and curtail offnotes.”

When it comes to reduced-sugar formulations, flavor perception can decrease as a result of the lower sugar content, Verdi says. “Sugar sweetness enhances overall taste and flavor impact in beverages,” he explains. “When sugar is reduced in a product formulation, the flavor taste perception is therefore also often lessened. Virginia Dare’s new taste modifiers can be used to strengthen the taste delivery in sugar-reduced products.” BI