As trusted experts in providing innovative sweetener solutions for food and beverage manufacturers, we work with a lot of companies that share common challenges when it comes to formulation with stevia. Sometimes selecting the right ingredients for a formulation can either make or break a product. More often than not, the knowledge needed to formulate with newer, unfamiliar ingredients like stevia is hard to come by.
The SoPure Stevia team is excited to be launching our new initiative to address these marketplace challenges. Based on our highly successful industry seminars, Formulas For Success is a monthly educational series from our leading formulation experts that covers the basics and fundamentals of trends in product formulation. Each time we’ll be featuring an emerging ingredient or combination of ingredients and sharing the key tips you’ll need to discover your own formula for success.
Stevia + Allulose = The Sweet New Couple
In this inaugural edition of Formulas for Success, we’re highlighting one of the fastest-rising low-calorie sweeteners that everyone is asking about — Allulose. Allulose has quickly gained traction with food and beverage manufacturers due to recent FDA guidance which allows the ingredient to be exempted from total and added sugar counts in nutrition labeling. This makes allulose an ideal sugar substitute for formulators looking to achieve cleaner labels and sugar reduction.
Allulose is about 62% as sweet as sugar and provides a lot of upfront sweetness which means it can act as a great formulation partner to stevia, which has a later onset of sweetness. From our experience, an allulose + stevia combination is particularly effective in formulations where bulking is required, such as baking or confectionery applications. This is due to allulose’s ability to replicate and replace the texture and mouthfeel of sugar. In baking, we have found allulose to brown faster and spread less than sugar, so it requires some slight adjustments in formulation to reproduce traditional sugar-laden recipes.
Allulose Formulation Considerations
- Cost is up to 4X the price of sugar and due to its lower sweetness intensity, the cost per unit of sweetness becomes even higher. When combined with stevia, the cost per unit sweetness becomes more manageable, though it may still be more than that of sugar.
- Allulose is not digested by the body very well and in some cases, may cause gastrointestinal irritation and discomfort. Formulators will need to be mindful on usage when formulating for products with high consumption potentials.
- Allulose has usage limits for food and beverages, as explained above, and further detailed on our SoPure website here. Supplements can utilize levels above those limits but off-notes may become more apparent when above the suggested usage limits.
- Our testing with allulose and stevia combinations has revealed that the initial taste of a product tends to be perceived as sweeter but will level off over repeated and continued consumption. Taste adaptation is more noticeable in this combination rather than on their own or when compared to other combinations.
Sample Stevia + Allulose Formulation
To illustrate stevia + allulose in action, we designed a sample formula where we combined allulose with Reb A 99 and our new DGS Flavor TN in a confectionary product.
This dark chocolate was exhibited at SSW 2019 and highlights a wide variety of ingredients from the Nascent Health Sciences portfolio including PQQ, Inositol and Vitamin E. The chocolate debuted to rave industry reviews at the event and serves as an excellent demonstration of how stevia and allulose can make an ideal pairing.
For some more in-depth details on the functionality of allulose, its nutritional information, and other important characteristics of this increasingly popular sweetener, visit our allulose application support page.
Need the recipe for the sugar free dark chocolate morsels? Or ready to create your own formula for success? If you’re interested in learning more about formulating with allulose and stevia, contact one of our expert consultants for your product development and formulation needs!