25 Feb 2015 Tate & Lyle launches allulose as a branded low-calorie sugar
Dolcia Prima is Tate & Lyle’s brand name for allulose, a low-calorie sugar, and one of many that exists in nature and can be found in small quantities in some fruits and foods people eat every day. It was first identified in wheat in the 1930s.
Dolcia Prima is said to deliver “the satisfying mouthfeel and sweetness of table sugar, but contains 90% fewer calories, so food and beverage manufacturers are expected to be able to significantly reduce the calories in products while maintaining the same taste and enjoyment of sugar that consumers demand”.
“One of the biggest challenges our industry faces is reducing calories while maintaining the taste experience consumers expect from their favourite foods and beverages,” said Abigail Storms, Vice President, Platform Management, Sweeteners, at Tate & Lyle.
“Working with Dolcia Prima, our culinary teams have learned that it is possible to provide consumers with products with all the taste, all the mouthfeel and all the texture they expect, but without all the calories. In taste trials, consumers ranked low-calorie versions of foods made with Dolcia Prima equally with the full-calorie versions.”
The ingredient can be used in a range of applications including beverages, yoghurt, ice cream and baked products. Unlike high-potency sweeteners, Dolcia Prima is 70% as sweet as sucrose (sugar) and has the same temporal taste profile, which means it provides a clean, sweet taste as well as the functionality of sugar such as adequate browning when baking, bulk and texture. It can also depress the freezing point when making frozen products.
It is a highly-soluble, liquid ingredient, which means it is easy to use in liquid products and adds bulk and texture in formulations. Dolcia Prima can also be used in combination with sweeteners, such as Splenda sucralose and Tasteva stevia sweetener, to enable even better sweetening systems.