Close Ad

The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

DouxMatok

DouxMatok Launches Incredo Spreads Made with Special Sugar Reduction Tech

After writing about Israeli startup DouxMatok‘s sugar reduction technology for nearly three years, we’ve finally gotten a chance to taste it — and you can too. Today the company launched two limited edition cocoa spreads made with its Incredo Sugar.

Unlike other sugar alternatives, Incredo Sugar uses actual sugar — just less of it. It turns out that sugar on its own doesn’t do a very good job of dispersing flavor on your tongue (which is why so much is added). To make it more efficient, DouxMatok attaches sugar to silica, which makes it diffuse more efficiently on your tongue. The result is that you can get the same amount of sweetness in a product using 40 percent less sugar.

To demonstrate, DouxMatok is now selling its Incredo Spreads for a limited time. The spreads, which are being made in North Carolina, come in two flavors: Hazlenut Cocoa and Dark Cocoa Salted Caramel. A serving of the Hazlenut Cocoa spread is 2 tbsp and has 190 calories with 11 grams of sugar. In contrast, a 2 tbsp serving of Nutella has 200 calories, and 21 grams of sugar.

DouxMatok sent me some samples to try out and you’d be hard-pressed to ever think they were “reduced sugar” products. The Dark Cocoa Salted Caramel spread in particular is quite delicious, and true to the marketing, a little goes a long way. It’s sweet, and complex and you don’t really need a lot to satisfy.

DouxMatok CEO Eran Baniel said by video chat last week that his company’s technology is more of a platform with applications beyond sugar. It could also be applied to other flavorings like salt, where using less also has health benefits. (A company called MicroSalt is already working on this.) Or it could be used to maximize existing supplies of ingredients such as real vanilla.

For those wanting to taste the Incredo Spreads on their own, a two-jar bundle can be purchased through the Incredo Sugar website for $22.95.

DouxMatok to Scale Production of Its Sugar Tech in N. America with Lantic

There’s good news for people in the U.S. who like sweets but want to reduce their sugar intake. Israeli startup DouxMatok announced today that its not-a-sugar-substitute will be mass produced by sugar manufacturer Lantic here in North America starting next year.

As you are probably well aware, we eat a lot of added sugar in our foods here in the U.S., and that is a problem. Too much sugar can have deleterious effects on the body including heart and liver problems.

DouxMatok’s technology aims to reduce our sugar intake without sacrificing the taste of sugar. But the company is not creating a sugar substitute. Instead, its approach is to make sugar more efficient when it hits our tongue. It does this by attaching sugar molecules to another edible substance. Originally, the company used silica, which, as we covered back in 2018:

[Silica] has lots of nooks and crannies that sugar molecules can fill. The sugar-packed silica diffuses more efficiently on our tongues, so food companies can use 40 percent less sugar in their products, without sacrificing the taste.

Since then, DouxMatok has updated its technology, replacing silica with an undisclosed odorless, calorie-free mineral that the company said is more effective.

The result, according to DouxMatok, is that food companies can still use sugar in their recipes, they just don’t need to use as much.

DouxMatok signed a similar deal with European sugar company Südzucker back in 2018. With today’s announcement, DouxMatok’s Incredo Sugar, as it is branded, will be made available at industrial volumes for food companies here in North America. Lantic is only handling the manufacturing and production, with DouxMatok doing all of the sales and marketing of its Incredo Sugar.

DouxMatok is one of a number of companies taking a technological approach to fighting the scourge of sugar. Nestlé has a process that restructures sugar particles to maintain sweetness at lower volumes. Joywell is creating plant-based alternatives to sugar through fermentation. And Nutrition Innovation creates sugar with a lower glycemic index through different refinement processes.

As someone who enjoys a fun-sized Snickers (or two) as an afternoon pick me up, these types of sugar improvements can’t come soon enough. DouxMatok says that products using its Incredo Sugar will be on store shelves here in the U.S. by the second half of 2021.

UPDATE: This post originally stated that the new version of DouxMatok’s sugar uses a clean label fiber. This fiber-based version is actually still under development, and the mineral-based product will be what hits North America.

DouxMatok Raises a Sweet $22M for its Sugar Reduction Technology

Israeli startup DouxMatok announced yesterday that it has raised a $22 million Series B round of funding for its sugar reduction system. The round was led by BlueRed Partners, with strategic investments from Südzuker AG, Royal DSM and Singha Ventures. This brings the total amount raised by DouxMatok to $30.2 million.

Sugar has come under more intense scrutiny over the past few years because of the high amount we’re eating and its deleterious effects on our bodies. Rather than creating some sugar substitute, DouxMatok aims to make the sugar we already consume more efficient. As we wrote when covering the company last year:

Evidently, sugar isn’t very good at hitting our taste buds, so food makers cram products full of it to attain their desired level of sweetness. A straightforward reduction in the amount of sugar in a product, then, is difficult to do without sacrificing taste.

DouxMatok gets around this by leveraging silica, which has lots of nooks and crannies that sugar molecules can fill. The sugar-packed silica diffuses more efficiently on our tongues, so food companies can use 40 percent less sugar in their products, without sacrificing the taste.

According to the press announcement, DuoxMatok will use the new funding to scale up production and sales of its solution as it commercializes in Europe and North America. The company says it will soon complete manufacturing of its sugar in Europe, done in partnership with investor Südzucker AG. DouxMatok also says it’s in discussions with a number of food companies to reformulate their products. DouxMatok expects commercial availability of its sugar by the end of this year.

DouxMatok is not the only company looking to make sugar a little sweeter for the health conscious. Nutrition Innovation uses near-infrared technology and a different refinement process to make NuCane, which retains sugar’s minerals and has a lower glycemic index. Candy company Nestlé has experimented with its sweets by changing the structure of sugar through the addition of microscopic holes so less can be used.

As a big fan of confectionery treats, seeing all this innovation in sugar is definitely pretty sweet.

No Substitute: Three Ways Science is Putting a New (and Improved) Spin on Sugar

Though companies have come up with various sugar substitutes over time, none have overthrown the king (and those substitutes might create their own problems). If you can’t beat ’em, you may as well use science to get down on the molecular level and join ’em.

Companies around the world are using various techniques not to replace sugar, but to change the way the substance is made or processed in the hopes of creating a better type of sugar. One that can be incorporated into the products we know, love, and crave, but doesn’t require as much of the sweet stuff.

Quartz has a story out today on DouxMatok, an Israeli startup that is combining sugar with food-grade silica to create a “sweeter sugar.” Evidently, sugar isn’t very good at hitting our taste buds, so food makers cram products full of it to attain their desired level of sweetness. A straightforward reduction in the amount of sugar in a product, then, is difficult to do without sacrificing taste.

DouxMatok gets around this by leveraging silica, which has lots of nooks and crannies that sugar molecules can fill. The sugar-packed silica diffuses more efficiently on our tongues, so food companies can use 40 percent less sugar in their products, without sacrificing the taste. The Quartz piece included a metaphor to help explain:

“Imagine 100 people in a house, each one holding a spoonful of sugar. If you ask them to go from room to room and then deposit the sugar into a jar, some will inevitably drop and spill sugar along the way. This is essentially what happens when you bite into a slice of normal cake. Now imagine one person in the house holding a sealed plastic bag containing the same amount of sugar. They’ll likely get to the jar without spilling any of it. The silica DouxMatok uses operates like the plastic bag.”

The startup just announced a partnership with European sugar company, Südzucker, to manufacture and commercialize Doxmatok’s sugar reduction process.

But Douxmatok isn’t the only company noodling with sugar molecules. Earlier this year, Nestlé unveiled a new sugar reduction technology of its own. They created a process of spraying sugar, powdered milk and water into hot air, which made the sugar develop microscopic holes. When this hole-y sugar hits your tongue, it still tastes as sweet — but all the holes means there’s less of it.

Nestlé debuted the new sugar structure in the Milkybar Wowsome (only available in Europe), which had 30 percent less sugar than comparable bars. The company said back in March that if it catches on (read: fools people well enough), the company will expand the technology into more chocolate brands.

Nutrition Innovation, on the other hand, is taking less of an atomic approach when making its traditional sugar replacement: Nucane. Instead, the company applies near-infrared scanning to raw sugar cane coming into a mill to alter the processing of it (crushing, washing, drying, etc.).

The result of these altered processing techniques is Nucane, which keeps minerals like calcium and potassium, which occur naturally in sugar, but has a lower glycemic index than traditional white refined sugar. Nutrition Innovation says Nucane provides more sustained energy after consumption compared to a sugar spike. Bonus: it can be swapped into existing recipes 1 for 1.

Nutrition Innovation entered into an agreement with Australia’s Sunshine Sugar to sell its Nucane to industrial sugar buyers, and the product is currently being tested by different companies around the world.

Ideally, these new scientific approaches to sugar will live up to their promises and spur even more innovation and investment. If we’re able to enjoy all the sweets with less sugar, the result would be pretty sweet.