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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

sugar

The Weekly Spoon: Sugar Alternatives Are the New Sweetness for Food Tech

Here in America, we like the sweet stuff. Whether it’s sodas, candies, or ice cream, we consume more added sugar than any other country.

Not surprisingly, all this sugar consumption can lead to health issues like diabetes, which has given rise to a massive sugar replacement industry offering up a variety of synthetic replacements like aspartame or sucralose and natural ones like stevia and monk fruit.

But as it turns out, even low or no-calorie alternatives sometimes come with their own health risks. For example, synthetic replacements like sucralose and saccharin have been shown to spike blood sugars, wreak havoc on your gut health and even become toxic when exposed to high temperatures. And while many have embraced natural alternatives like stevia and monk fruit sweeteners over synthetic sweeteners in recent years, recent research has shown that the sugar alcohol erythritol, which is often added to stevia and monk fruit as a sweetener, has been linked to heart attack and stroke.

Despite these problems, consumers continue to eat up sugar substitutes around the world. In fact, the market for sugar substitutes is expected to grow from $18 billion in 2022 to over $28.5 billion by 2032, fueled by increasing demand for healthy lifestyles and growing interest in sugar alternatives in Asia.

This continued interest in sugar replacements could mean a big payoff for those innovators who can create alternatives that sweet taste without all the downsides of the current offerings. This week The Spoon covers two of these startups creating new sugar alternatives that represent a significant departure from those currently on the market.

First, there’s Oobli, which has figured out how to sweeten its teas and chocolates using a sweet protein called brazzein. While brazzein is a sweet protein found in the Western African oubli fruit, it is incredibly costly and difficult to extract. Oobli (which takes its name from the fruit) has discovered a way to create a chemically identical version of brazzein via microbial fermentation. They launched their chocolate line earlier this year and launched their sweet teas this week.

The other company we covered this week is Incredo, which doesn’t replace sugar but maximizes its sweetness properties while minimizing its impact on the body. The company does this by binding cane or beet sugar to a natural carrier, which then maximizes the sweetness as it hits the sweet taste receptors on the tongue. According to Incredo, their sugar reduction solution results in 30-50% less added sugar in foods.

As I wrote earlier this week, I had a chance to try out the Oobli peach sweet tea on stage at the SynBioBeta conference, and I think the company may have a hit on its hands. It tasted just as good as the sugary sweet stuff!

If you get a chance to try either of these new sugar alternatives – or know of one we haven’t written about – drop us a line! 

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Is Amazon Serious About Underground Delivery?

In 2017, Amazon was awarded a patent for something one might find in a science fiction novel: underground package delivery.

And while it seemed like they ripped a page out of a Hugh Howey novel, the argument for underground delivery tunnels – no carbon emitted into the air, reduced traffic, etc.- kinda made sense. 

But even so, the idea still sounded a bit nuts, and for the next few years, there wasn’t any signal the company was serious about the idea until last month when Amazon founder Jeff Bezos was seen checking out the prototype for an underground delivery to home solution from Pipedream Labs. 

Spoon readers might remember Pipedream Labs as the company with big plans to build an underground delivery network of pipes around cities to shuttle food or other items all the way to the home. The company is working with Wendy’s and other restaurants in the near term – you gotta pay the bills after all – but still has hopes to build the bigger vision of a citywide underground delivery network.

In fact, in a recent Twitter thread, Pipedream CTO Canon Reeves said the company is now courting master-planned community builders with a system that would deliver into the home.

Check out the full article on PipeDream Labs here.

Google Wants to Put an End to Single-Use Plastic, So It Put Out a Call For New Ideas

We all know plastic is bad for the environment, but despite all the videos of plastic bottles and wrappers floating in oceans and piling up in landfills, billions of single-use containers are used and tossed every year.

Google has decided to do something about it, so it’s launched a call to food companies with sustainable packaging to submit their products to the Google Single-Use Plastics Challenge. According to the company, Google will test out those products that meet state and federal requirements and pass muster with Google’s Food program standards in the company’s U.S.-based cafes and MicroKitchens. Finalists will have the opportunity to pitch their products to Google and “leading global food operators” to scale them across Google’s U.S. offices.

Reading the fine print, Google is prioritizing reusable serviceware and packaging but will also accept packaging concepts that are edible, fiber-based, or unlined serviceware/packaging. The company will accept some post-consumer recycled packaging for certain categories, and while it will accept glass and aluminum, it makes clear these are “not preferred.” Those with plastic, bio-based, compostable, multi-layer, or PFAS-lined products need not apply.

While big corporates have made progress in recent years in eliminating plastic in the form of straws and drink containers, a whole bunch of plastic is still being used in food service and cafeterias every day. Google’s effort goes further by emphasizing food service plastic in all forms, including plastic containers and wrappers, a huge problem that has gotten less attention than plastic bottles, straws, and cutlery.

For those interested in applying to the Google Single-Use Plastic Challenge, you’ll need to hurry since the deadline is May 30th.

Restaurant Tech

Wow Bao Launches the ‘Hot Buns Club’, a $99-a-Year Web3 Loyalty Program

Wow Bao, the digitally nimble Asian food startup that’s expanded nationwide in recent years through an asset-light virtual restaurant model, announced the launch of its NFT program last week. The new NFTs, called Digital CollectaBaos, will be proof of membership in a new super-fan tier called the Hot Buns Club within the company’s Bao Bucks loyalty program.

Wow Bao laid out a web3 vision last November that will eventually include such far-out concepts as metaverse vending machines, but before they take their steamed buns fully into the virtual realm, it’ll start onboarding dedicated customers through its NFT-powered subscription program for $99 bucks a year.

The initial benefits for Wow Bao NFT holders include 10% off delivery orders, double Bao Bucks points on purchases, 10% off merch orders, and contest giveaways.

The Wow Bao NFT program is built on the Polygon network, a Proof of Stake consensus algorithm blockchain that proponents say is more environmentally friendly than many other Ethereum-based digital currencies. Despite the blockchain underpinnings of its new loyalty supertier, Wow Bao is – at least for the time being – downplaying the crypto angle given all the bad press the technology has gotten over the past year, positioning it instead as a digital collectible with associated member benefits.

To reach the full story, head over to The Spoon.

Finalists for NASA’s Deep Space Food Challenge Include Astronaut Oven & Air Protein Technology
 

Last week, NASA announced the finalists for the final phase of the Deep Space Food Challenge, a competition designed to help explore and better understand how these agencies can feed humans in space. The US Space Agency awarded $750,000 in prizes in the second phase of its Deep Space Food Challenge, and the winning teams will compete in the final phase of the challenge and $1.5 million in prize money.

The kickoff of the third phase is the culmination of almost two years of competition that saw hundreds of applicants get whittled down to 28 competing in the first round to eleven finalists for phase 2, and as of last week, eight companies competing in phase 3.

The following five US teams are among the eight finalists in phase 3:

  • Air Company of Brooklyn, New York, developed a system and processes for turning air, water, electricity, and yeast into food.
  • Interstellar Lab of Merritt Island, Florida, created a modular bioregenerative system for producing fresh microgreens, vegetables, mushrooms, and insects.
  • Kernel Deltech USA of Cape Canaveral, Florida, developed a system for cultivating mushroom-based ingredients.
  • Nolux of Riverside, California, created a solution that mimics the photosynthesis that happens in nature to produce plant- and mushroom-based ingredients.
  • SATED (Safe Appliance, Tidy, Efficient, and Delicious) of Boulder, Colorado, developed a space cooking appliance that would allow astronauts to prepare a variety of meals from ingredients with long shelf lives.

Read the full story here on The Spoon.

Incredo Sugar: Redefining Sweetness, Delighting Taste Buds, and Nurturing Health

The intake of excess sugar in our diets is an epidemic that has no season or one that lies stealthily in refrigerators or airplane tray tables. Healthy Food America notes that the United States leads the world in the consumption of added sugars and ranks third in the world in sales of sugary drinks. All this sugar has consequences – the U.S. has one of the highest overall obesity rates in the world and the highest rate of childhood obesity, not to mention heart disease and diabetes.

Several attempts to replace sugar with artificial sweeteners such as Aspartame and Saccharin have been mildly effective, asking consumers to give up taste to unsweetened diets. Natural options such as agave, monk fruit, and Stevia round out this list focusing on substitution rather than the complex approach of manipulating a sugar molecule. Enter Incredo (formerly DouxMatok), an Israeli company with an idea that maximizes the properties of sugar but limits its impact on the body.

Born out of necessity in World War II, the story is a part of history led by Prof. Avraham Baniel, a renowned chemist in Israel. The best retelling of the journey from concept to realization can be found in an episode of the Netflix series “Explained” (Season Three, Episode 1). In short, Prof. Beniel discovered that by adding starch to sugar crystals, consumers could use less sugar with the same taste. Fast forward to 2001 and then to 2013 and 2014, and Baniel brought his earlier discovery back to life with a significant improvement. Using a small “carrier” with the active ingredient (sugar) as part of the refinery process results in a cluster of sugars rather than a new molecule. These clusters will then linger on the tongue, optimizing flavor delivery.

Incredo CEO Ari Melamud

The Israeli food tech startup recently announced the close of its latest (and most significant) fundraising round to date, coinciding with the unveiling of a new company name, Incredo LTD, based on the company’s signature product Incredo® Sugar. In an interview with The Spoon, company CEO Ari Melamud discussed how Incredo is poised to create a healthier sugary experience.

Using a chocolate bar with 13 grams of sugar as an example, Melamud said Incredo could reduce the sugar content by 30 percent to 50%, which could be great news for those with diabetes and other related conditions.

“It changes from one application to another and even from one recipe to another because every recipe is very different depending on the other ingredients inside,” Melamud said. “So, on average, we can say we can drop 40%. And again, our technology is not a diabetes solution. But we’re a mass market solution to help everybody prevent becoming diabetic in many ways. Because if you look at the numbers and statistics on a global average, we’re consuming about three or four times more sugar than recommended. If we can drop it by 50%, 40 to 50%, that’s a big difference for a lot of people preventing people from becoming diabetic actually. This is our main mission and our main tasks.”

Even in its earliest stage, DouxMatok has developed significant commercial partnerships with Better Nutritionals, a supplement manufacturer; Batory Foods, a specialty ingredient company; and Blommer Chocolate Company, North America’s largest cocoa processor and ingredient chocolate supplier.

If the company’s Incredo Sugar has one Achilles heel, it will not work with liquid (preventing use in beverages) because it quickly dissolves, bypassing the product’s lingering taste experience. After hearing DouxMatok’s story, the issues with liquid are small hurdles that could be rapidly overcome.

B.T. Sweets Unveils Cambya, an Alternative Sugar Made From Plant-Fibers and Botanicals

When serial entrepreneur Dagi Pekatch began showing early signs of developing Type 2 diabetes, he began to study the negative health effects of sugar. His research not only showed him he wasn’t alone – in just the United States, one in three people have prediabetes and worldwide, it is estimated that 422 million people live with diabetes – but also made him realize our sugar addiction represented a huge opportunity for a better alternative. It wouldn’t be long before he co-founded a start-up called B.T. Sweets in 2019, which this week unveiled its first product: Cambya, a sugar alternative made from soluble fibers, botanicals, and monk fruit.

Cambya is a one-to-one sugar replacement, meaning that it uses the same measurements used for standard white sugar. For example, if a muffin recipe called for 1/2 cup of cane sugar, then a 1/2 cup of Cambya could be used instead. Since soluble fibers are one of the main components of this alternative sugar, the company says this improves digestion and increases satiety.

Sugar poses a major problem in our modern society: we eat way too much of it, and it’s making us sick. Of course, while many other alternative sweeteners like stevia, erythritol, monk fruit extract are already widely available, it is well known that many of these zero sugar sweeteners have a bitter or “off” aftertaste. With more consumers choosing to reduce their added sugar intake, the sugar-alternative market is projected to be worth $10.2 billion USD by 2026.

Another start-up called The Supplant Company has a similar idea to Cambya. This company also uses plant fibers to craft a low-sugar, high-fiber sweetener, but what sets Supplant apart is that it uses the fibers of agricultural side streams like corn, wheat, and rice. DouxMatok and BetterJuice are two other companies in the food tech space that have also developed sugar reduction technologies.

Cambya operates on a plug-and-play model where it will work with both new and existing CPG companies to achieve the goal of creating products with lower added-sugar content. Manufacturers have the option to only use Cambya, or blend it with other sugars. According to the company, Cambya has been tested in many confectionery applications, in everything from cake to pudding to ice cream. Cake without all the sugar (and negative health effects!) and sounds pretty sweet to me.

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.

Nestlé Upcycling Cacoa Pod Leftovers Into New Chocolate Without any Added Sugar

Nestlé has created a KitKat bar that combines two things we love here at The Spoon: chocolate and upcycling. Bloomberg reported yesterday that the Swiss candy maker has developed a way to use leftover material from cocoa plants to sweeten dark chocolate with no additional sugar.

How is this confectionary wizardry possible? Bloomberg writes, “The food company is using a patented technique to turn the white pulp that covers cocoa beans into a powder that naturally contains sugar.” Traditionally, this pulp has been thrown out, but by upcycling it, Nestlé can sweeten the bars without adding more sugar. This 70 percent dark chocolate KitKat bar will have “as much as 40 percent less sugar than most equivalent bars with added sugar,” according to Bloomberg, and will go on sale in Japan this fall.

An amusing sidenote to this story is that this discovery seems to be a bit of serendipity. Nestlé said it hadn’t set out to reduce the sugar, but was focused more on developing new ways to make chocolate using more of the cocoa pod. But we know that the company, facing consumers who are more health conscious and rising obesity rates, has been working on reducing sugars in its products. A little over a year ago Nestlé debuted a process of restructuring sugar that gave it more surface area and thus required using less of it while maintaining the same level of sweetness.

And Nestlé isn’t alone in looking to satisfy our global sweet tooth without sacrificing flavor. Israeli startup DouxMatok raised $22 million last month for its technology that uses silica to help sugar diffuse more efficiently in our mouths, so less is required. And in May, Singapore-based Nutrition Innovation raised $5 million for its Nucane, which is a lower glycemic sugar made via a different type of processing at sugar mills.

Nestlé said its new process could expand beyond dark chocolate and into milk and white chocolate as well. Even sweeter than the reduction in sugar is the reduction in food waste. Hopefully other companies will have cravings to follow suit.

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.

Nutrition Innovation Raises $5M to Improve Sugar

Nutrition Innovation announced yesterday that it has raised a $5 million Series A round of funding. The round was led by VisVires New Protein, with participation from Enerfo Group (h/t to PE Hub).

Singapore-based Nutrition Innovation makes Nucane, which the company touts as a healthier way to produce sugar. As we wrote about the company last year:

Nutrition Innovation uses near-infrared scanning technology to understand the composition of the raw sugar cane coming into the mill. Based on this analysis, Nutrition Innovation’s algorithms tell the mill how to alter its refinement process (crushing, washing, drying, etc.) in order to produce a better sugar product.

The result is Nucane, which retains minerals like calcium, magnesium, potassium, and has a lower glycemic index than traditional white refined sugar. Godfrey says Nucane also creates less of a sugar “spike” and provides a more sustained release of energy after consumption.

The company markets Nucane as a “healthier” because it is not refined and has this lower glycemic index. We aren’t nutritionists or scientists so we can’t back up this claim, but since Nucane is made from sugar, it still tastes like sweet stuff, and Nutrition Innovation says Nucane can be swapped into recipes 1 for 1. This is key because Nucane is a B2B play, with industrial sugar mills being Nutrition Innovation’s customers. A mill can sell this Nucane’s “healthier” sugar to food producers, which can use it without having to alter or retrofit existing recipes.

When we last checked in with Nutrition Innovation, the company had an agreement with Australia’s Sunshine Sugar to offer Nucane to commercial buyers, and was in trial with roughly 50 companies around testing Nucane in various food and beverage brands.

IBM to Use IoT, Watson and Data to Boost Sugar Cane Production in Thailand

If you’re around my age, when you think of IBM, an image of big mainframe computers with giant rotating tape loops come to mind (I’m old). But for you young’uns, you’d be forgiven if the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about IBM is food.

Today, Big Blue announced a two-year research collaboration with the Thailand government’s National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSTDA) that will use IBM’s Internet of Things (Iot), artificial intelligence (AI) and analytics capabilities to help improve sugarcane yields in Thailand. (Thailand is the world’s second largest exporter of sugar.) The pilot will run on three sugar cane farms covering 1 million square meters run by Mitr Phol, Asia’s largest sugar producer.

IBM’s Agronomic Insights Assistant will bring together elements of IBM Watson Decision Platform for Agriculture, the IBM Pairs Geoscope and The Weather Company, which IBM purchased in 2015. The program will gather data from the fields (soil moisture, crop health, etc.) using a combination of IoT sensors and satellite imagery, which will be augmented with local data from the NSTDA and years of weather data from The Weather Company to better predict potential environmental issues like rainfall.

The IBM platform will then take all this data and run it through Watson to create a software and mobile dashboard to help Mitr Phol better assess and manage risks like pests, diseases, irrigation and pesticide/fertilizer application, with the goal of optimizing productivity and increasing crop yield.

The Agronomic Insights Assistant will start its pilot in the middle of this year, and because IBM is working with NSTDA, a government agency, the insights gained may be shared with other farmers in the region so they can apply the same tactics.

As noted earlier, IBM is a name that keeps popping up in the food tech space for us here at The Spoon. In September of last year the company created the Agropad, a cheap, paper sensor that could be used to measure acidity and chemical levels in soil. And earlier this year, Big Blue partnered with McCormick to apply its AI tech to developing new spices.

Right now, the Agronomic Insights Assistant is in the research phase, so things like pricing and availability weren’t discussed. IBM is facing a lot of competition in the data-driven-insights-for-agtech space. Arable and Teralytic both make field sensors to provide data on soil conditions, Taranis uses aerial imaging including from satellites to help farmers spot diseases early, and Hi Fidelity Genetics uses sensors, data and AI for improved crop breeding.

The advantage IBM has, of course, is that it’s IBM. It has existing sales channels, Watson is perhaps the premiere AI brand, and it can combine sensors, data, weather prediction and AI under one roof. And, of course, a younger generation of farmers unfamiliar with IBM’s roots may not have the preconceived notion of IBM’s mainframe roots.

Better Juice Uses Microorganisms to Reduce Sugar in OJ (and Beyond)

On the weekends if I go out to brunch, I like to treat myself to a tall glass of orange juice along with my pancakes and eggs. Which seems like a healthy choice: OJ, after all, is fruit — it’s got to be good for me, right?

Apparently, not so much. According to a study in the journal Nutrition (via NPR), fruit juice has a fructose concentration of about 45.5 grams per liter — which is only a smidgen less than soda, which averages at 50 grams per liter. Just one cup of OJ has 21 grams of sugar, which is almost half of the FDA’s recommended daily sugar limit.

But you don’t necessarily have to ditch your OJ just yet. A company called Better Juice is developing a way to cut down on the amount of simple sugars in fruit juice, honey, agave, and more. Founded in 2017, the Israeli startup has created a column-shaped piece of hardware which contains mobilized non-GMO microorganisms.

The column is adjustable and electric powered. After the juice is squeezed workers pour it into the column, which uses pumps, heat exchangers, and cooling to pass the liquid through the micro-organisms and out the other side. As it goes through, the microorganisms convert the fructose, glucose, and sucrose (basically, all the molecules that make food taste sweet) in the juice into fibers that will, um, pass, instead of absorbing into your body.

“We’re not actually removing the sugar,” explained Better Juice CEO Eran Blachinsky over the phone. “We’re leaving it in the juice, just in a non-digestible form.” Blachinsky wouldn’t disclose what kind of microorganisms they used (algae, yeast, etc.) but told me that they were food grade. The entire process takes about one hour from start to finish.

Jenn Marston wrote about Better Juice earlier this year, stating that its low-sugar, high-fiber product “basically solves the two biggest gripes about fruit juice out there right now.”

Of course, reducing the digestible sugar content also means the juice will taste less sweet, so the company has to strike a balance between health and flavor. “We are able to reduce 87 percent of the sugars,” said Blachinsky. “But most people enjoy a 30 percent reduction.” According to him, that percentage maintains the sweet taste while still allowing the beverage company to label their product as “reduced sugar,” targeting health-conscious consumers.

Better Juice currently has six employees and has received approximately $500,000 from Israeli food tech incubator The Kitchen Hub. The company has just completed its prototype and will be piloting it abroad with three beverage companies: one in Israel and two “abroad.”

Each liter of Better Juice’s micro-organism-filled column can treat 1,000 liters of juice. Blachinksy didn’t disclose exact pricing details, noting that the number depends on the quantity in production, but said that 1 cubic meter of column would cost between $100,000 and $200,000 total. While the hardware will last indefinitely, the company has to replace the micro-organisms ever 2 to 3 months.

Reduced sugar beverages are growing in popularity — soda sales are down, while low-sugar or sugar-free ready-to-drink (RTD) products are on the rise. With its B2B technology that allows any juice (or honey, or ice cream, etc.) company to reduce the amount of sugar in their product, without sacrificing taste, Better Juice could help a large range of companies break into the burgeoning healthy drink market.

The only issue I could see is adoption difficulties on the manufacturing side. Blachinksy asserted that Better Juice’s column is easy to install and wouldn’t require specially trained or skilled employees, but it’s easy to be optimistic before the real-world test of a pilot program. If the column is indeed as easy to plug into manufacturing practices as Blachinsky hopes, it could be a pretty sweet (sorry) deal for all involved.

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.

Hole-y Sweet Tooth! Nestlé Restructures Sugar to Use Less of it

“Sugar monster” is what we call my son after he’s had too much candy or cake at a birthday party and is all wound up. Yes, I know sugar doesn’t actually make kids hyper, but the term is a way of warning him off overindulging his sweet tooth.

“Eat any more and you’ll turn into a sugar monster,” we’ll say, totally sounding like parents.

But a new technology from Nestlé could automatically give him less sugar when he’s enjoying treats. The company introduced the Milkybar Wowsome this week, which has 30 percent less sugar than comparable bars. Don’t panic, candy lovers! The Wowsome, Nestlé promises, will still taste just as good as the classic Milkybars.

To achieve this wizardry, Nestlé scientists actually restructure the sugar when making the new Wowsomes. Genius Kitchen has a great explainer, likening it to cotton candy:

“Sugar, powdered milk and water are sprayed into hot air, which causes the particles to dry out and stabilize while filled with microscopic holes. This sugar structure causes the sugar to dissolve more quickly upon contact with liquid (in this case, on your tongue). The sugar tastes just as sweet, but since it’s porous, there’s less of it.”

SWEET!

Nestlé said that it will expand the use of this technique to more children’s chocolate brands.

This move is part of a larger global trend of companies looking to reduce the sugar they serve, as consumers become more conscious of what they put in their bodies and lawmakers flex legal muscles to reduce sugar consumption. In the U.S. Pepsi is fighting the soda sales slump with its Drinkfinity line of flavored water. Down under in Australia, Nutrition Innovation has developed Nucane, a “healthier” sugar made by altering the refining process. And Bayn Europe created SugarReduced, an online community and platform that provides tools to help food and beverage producers reduce and replace sugar in their products.

Sadly, Europe is where you need to be if you want to try out the new Milkybar Wowsome. The restructured sugar bar will hit store shelves in the U.K. and Ireland over the next few weeks.

Happily, however, I will definitely seek out and purchase this miracle of modern science while attending our Smart Kitchen Summit Europe in Dublin, Ireland June 11 – 12. Come say hi to me at the show and I’ll share one with you. (No sugar monsters allowed.)