Alex Clere spoke with Sarah Dorschner, senior product manager for B2C at Döhler, at BrauBeviale 2018 about the company’s solutions for sugar reduction.

“In general the whole industry at the moment is looking for a sugar reduction option that is natural, which we took on as a challenge. We are trying to find solutions and provide our customers with approaches and ingredients which give a natural character and reduce sugar in products.”

Dorschner demonstrated a few real-life applications which Döhler exhibited at the show.

“We have different approaches that we are focussing on. On the one hand, we have plant-based water and juice concepts to reduce the sugar and have a component that does not add any calories.”

Döhler is also offering customers solutions, such as their MultiSense range, to retain taste and mouthfeel in sugar-reduced products.

This is also in response to a consumer concern about levels of sugar in beverages.

“We focus on sweetening flavours which bring back the sweetness perception that is taken away when you reduce amounts of sugar.

“In this case, we only have five grams of sugar, plus our MultiSense sweet flavour to bring back the mouthfeel that is lacking when we reduce the sugar.”

Alongside the need for calorie reduction, naturalness is also prevalent in consumer wants, which Dorschner contends is something that Döhler is taking into account within its solutions. She noted that the company has also been developing a way to include stevia with a reduced strong aftertaste.

“This is also another big challenge – to truly have a natural solution without any calories. We see that on the one hand, stevia could really have an answer to this challenge, but we have seen that in the market stevia has been [criticised] because stevia had an aftertaste with metallic, liquorice notes, but we see that the market is getting much better.

“We have a solution for stevia extract which is really neutral in taste which we integrate into our products to follow this path of naturalness with a good taste.”

With the given versatility of such a solution, Dorschner agrees that Döhler can be flexible in reformulating a whole range of products.

“Sugar reduction does not just remove the sweetness of beverages, it’s also about the texture, mouthfeel, and flavour.

“We can find solutions to be tailor-made for any application.”