Nestle SA says it found a way to reduce the amount of sugar in chocolate by as much as 40 percent, a discovery that may give the KitKat maker an edge as food producers face increasing pressure from governments, health advocates and shoppers to make products healthier.
The world’s largest food company has developed a process to alter the structure of sugar that makes it taste sweeter in smaller amounts, according to Chief Technology Officer Stefan Catsicas, who declined to specify what that involves. Nestle will start selling confectionery products made that way in 2018 and will gradually reduce their sugar content, he said in an interview.
Big food companies that also include Mondelez International Inc. and PepsiCo Inc. are scrambling to create healthier products to reduce their reliance on treats laden with sugar and salt. It comes as the U.K., Mexico and some U.S. cities implement sugar taxes to help fight childhood obesity and diabetes, which affects four times as many people now than in 1980. The World Health Organization has said increasing the price of sugary drinks by 20 percent would reduce consumption by a fifth.
“We want people to get used to a different taste, a taste that would be more natural,” Catsicas said. “We really want to be the drivers of the solution.”
Nestle is seeking to patent the sugar-reduction process, which Catsicas wouldn’t describe in detail, but likened to making sugar crystals that are “hollow.” The crystals dissolve more quickly, stimulating the taste buds faster, he said. Unprocessed food has complex structures, which Nestle is trying to mimic by distributing the sugar in a less uniform way.
“If you look with an electron microscope into an apple, that’s exactly what you see,” said Nestle’s top researcher, days before the U.K. government shares details on its proposed sugar tax. “Real food in nature is not something smooth and homogeneous. It’s full of cavities, crests and densities. So by reproducing this variability, we are capable to restore the same sensation.”
...
Connect With Us