Nestle SA, the international food behemoth, announced on Wednesday that it had developed a type of sugar with markedly more sweetness, allowing the company to reduce the amount of sugar in its candy products.
“It is sugar, but it is assembled differently so it can disassemble easily in your mouth with less going into your gastrointestinal tract,” Nestle chief technology officer Stefan Catsicas said.
Nestle declined to fully explain the process, because the company is pursuing patents for it.
However, Catsicas compared a normal crystal of sugar to a shoe box, where the box is made of sugar and everything inside it is also made of sugar.
The new sugar, he said, would be processed to have the same sugar exterior — although it might be a globe instead of a box — to dissolve in the mouth.
Because less sugar is inside, less goes to the stomach.
Nestle said the new sugar would be introduced in products starting in 2018, and that more details about it would be released next year.
Nestle is to initially use the product to reduce sugar in its confectionery lines by as much as 40 percent, Catsicas said.
“Reducing sugar is the holy grail of food companies these days — but does it work?” New York University department of nutrition professor Marion Nestle said.
Catsicas said Nestle would have preferred to make the announcement after receiving patents and trademark protection.
However, he said the news was already leaking, and the company wanted to tell its own story rather than allowing someone else to do so.
Nestle might eventually sell its new sugar to other food companies for use in their products, Catsicas said.
However, “it is not something that can be mixed into your coffee,” he said.
It also cannot be used to sweeten soda, the company said.
Nestle, which like many big food companies, is working to reduce the fat, salt and sugar in its products, previously developed a way to reduce fat in ice cream.
Its “slow-churned” ice creams are processed in such a way that they require less fat.
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