'Allulose has great potential as a sugar substitute'

Attention to healthy food is growing and sugar does not always fit in with that trend. Food producers are eagerly looking for alternatives. Ingredients that provide the taste and texture of sugar, but provide no or fewer calories. Natural sweeteners, such as stevia, are a step in the right direction, but they also have a major disadvantage. They are not one-to-one substitutes for sugar.

"You often only need to add a pinch of stevia and other sweeteners to sweeten products," says Désirée Potters, Marketing Industry Manager at Cosun Beet Company. "Go ahead and bake a cake with that. It's not easy to get a good structure." Regular sugar is added to products to provide volume (in addition to sweetening power), and therefore falls into the category of bulk sugars. Alternatives are not simply available.

Virtually no calories
That makes allulose all the more interesting. "Allulose is a rare sugar that can replace bulk sugar," says Caroline Hoppenbrouwers, Business Creation Manager at Cosun Beet Company. "It has the same properties as sugar, offers 70% of the sweetening power of sugar, but contains only 10% of the calories. For example, there are only 0,4 kcal in one gram of allulose. According to the nutritional guidelines you can round this down and label as 'no calories'."

Hoppenbrouwers is responsible for the innovations that Cosun produces. This is not just about the production of sugar and sugar specialties, but about the entire development of the sugar beet. "For example, we are working on extracting proteins from beet leaves. Something that is needed in the market." The demand for vegetable proteins is high. The same goes for sugar substitutes.

Allulose Novel Food Consortium
The development of allulose is still in its infancy at Cosun Beet Company. For example, together with external parties, various possible production processes are being closely examined. However, development could move quickly if Europe gives the green light for the use of allulose in foods. To achieve that, it is Allulose Novel Food Consortium started. A collaboration between Cosun Beet Company and Ingredion Inc. (United States), Matsutani Chemical Industry (Japan) and Samyang Corp. (South Korea).

The four companies want to accelerate the admission of allulose to the European market. A first announcement has been made at EFSA, the European Food Safety Authority. "Allulose is already available in a number of countries, including the United States, Mexico, Japan and South Korea," say Hoppenbrouwers and Potters. "Europe is relatively strict when it comes to food safety and so the introduction here is slower. We expect it will take another two years."

Quite a few market introductions already
According to the ladies, the chance of success is high. "There is currently no full-fledged alternative to sugar available. And while allulose is still a new ingredient for us, we are already seeing quite a few introductions in other countries. Large food groups such as Kellogg's and Nestlé already have products with allulose on the market. We are also initially focusing on B2B, but ultimately we also want to offer allulose directly to consumers. This is already happening in countries where the product is already available."

The one-to-one replacement of sugar in existing products is somewhat more difficult with allulose, Hoppenbrouwers agrees. "This is because the sweetening power is slightly lower. For new products the potential is extremely high. The texture, the mouthfeel, the browning (for bakery products). It is all the same as sugar. In addition, allulose is also available in both crystalline and liquid form. available." Cosun Beet Company hopes that allulose will eventually have the same status in Europe as it does in the United States. "There, allulose is labeled as carbohydrates and not as sugars," says Potters. "Then it is really seen as a low-calorie product."

Cooperation between beet growers
According to Hoppenbrouwers and Potters, allulose is indeed a sugar, but it is essentially different from table sugar. Allulose is a standalone product with unique properties. "By the way, it does not hinder the existing sugar market. We think that allulose has great potential, but that also applies to our other sugar products. These can coexist well. The most important thing is that we valorize the sugar beet as best as possible. And We do this in close collaboration with our farmers."