Today's consumers want a shorter, cleaner, more familiar list of ingredients without artificial colours, flavours, or preservatives. In tandem, strengthening awareness around healthy eating is now a global megatrend, with the desire to reduce sugar intake a key feature. Alongside such priorities, customers are unwilling to compromise on sensory delight, and are instead seeking healthy hedonism: natural and nutritious foods that taste great.
Naturally derived sweeteners and flavours from pioneering powerhouse INGIA Biotech respond to those consumer needs, empowering manufacturers to reformulate and create products reduced in sugar but not sweetness.
The Need for Naturalness
As consumers shift from artificial sweeteners towards more familiar, naturally derived alternatives, stevia and monk fruit have gained strong mainstream consumer acceptance. When combined, such solutions have proved particularly successful across various categories.
One study explored how naturally derived sweeteners could be optimised for sugar reduction in chocolate flavoured milk. Using Response Surface Methodology (RSM), the researchers systematically optimised stevia and monk fruit extract blends in chocolate milk to reduce sucrose by around 50%.1
This optimisation targeted sensory attributes (overall liking, appearance, aroma, sweetness, mouthfeel and aftertaste) and consumer acceptance. Used in combination, the two plant-derived ingredients resulted in sweetness synergy: the bitter and metallic aftertastes of stevia were masked by the monk fruit extract, and the blend successfully enhanced the product's overall sensory attributes.
Within this field, Ingvia®Reb M Sweetener by INGIA stands out as a high-purity, zero-calorie steviol glycoside. Known for its clean, sugar-like taste, Reb M is a naturally derived alternative that delivers due to its minimal aftertaste and superior sweetness profile, enabling formulations with no added sugar – and zero compromise. Leveraging advanced fermentation technology, INGIA's next-generation Reb M achieves dissolution rates nearly 10 times faster, with two to three times higher solubility than conventional Reb M products, delivering superior performance across diverse applications.
Alongside this, INGIA's monk fruit sweetener Mogroside V is a naturally derived, safe, non-nutritive sweetener that is approximately 300 times sweeter than sucrose, with advantages including low-calorie content, non-toxicity, and high stability.
Health Goals
Increased awareness around healthy eating is driving many consumers to reassess their food and beverage choices.
Providing high energy intake with low nutritional value, sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) have long been a target of regulatory interventions due to the health consequences of their high consumption, including links to weight gain, dental issues, insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and other chronic diseases.
SSB reformulation therefore offers an opportunity to improve health outcomes and help consumers achieve greater balance in their diets.
In human trials, consumption of zero-calorie or low-calorie beverages containing Rebaudioside M (Reb M) was shown to lower postprandial insulin responses compared to sucrose, without triggering compensatory increases in subsequent energy intake or appetite.
INGIA Biotech's premium stevia extract INGVIA® Reb M provides exceptional sweetness – yet, unlike artificial alternatives, its consumption does not lead to compensatory overeating or increased appetite later, making it a truly healthy sugar substitute.
A Matter of Taste
While such virtues may drive initial food and beverage purchases, taste is what remains the crucial determinant for repeat purchases and long-term consumer loyalty. Reformulation success therefore hinges on maintaining a familiar taste and aroma to match consumer expectations. This is especially important given that 85% of US consumers prioritise taste over price and healthfulness in purchase decisions.2
Research has consistently shown that enhanced vanilla aromatic intensity increases perceived sweetness and consumer preference. Such flavour modulation can be achieved by adding minute quantities of vanillin, enabling a 'win-win' formulation strategy that combines lower sugar content with improved nutritional profile, and optimal cost-effectiveness.
One compelling study3 showed how using vanilla aroma in plant-based yogurt significantly elevated perceived sweetness and masked undesirable cereal-associated flavours. This provided empirical sensory evidence for aroma-enabled sweetness enhancement and formula optimisation.
One of INGIA's bestselling natural flavours, VanilliNext™ (a sustainable form of vanillin) is an exceptionally strong performer in this regard, and can be used in an array of applications – from dairy to confectionery, and bakery products – where sugar reduction is the goal.
Produced from the ferulic acid of non-GMO rice using biotransformation technology, VanilliNext™ is recognised as strictly identical on a molecular level to vanillin in the vanillin bean. Indeed, VanilliNext™ offers the same physical and chemical properties – and crucially, the same organoleptic profile. The result is an intense vanillin taste, and a superior flavour to synthetic vanillin. Such attributes ultimately enable manufacturers to achieve great taste, alongside a cleaner label, and a reduced sugar profile for their product.
Where Scientific Discovery and Respect for Nature Converge?
Offering a portfolio of nature-derived sweeteners (steviol glycosides, mogroside, allulose) and flavours (vanillin) that serve the food, beverage, and nutrition markets, INGIA Biotech continues to pioneer innovations out of its three advanced fermentation platforms – located in Shanghai, Chengdu, and Xi'an, China.
Its R&D Centre operates a comprehensive synthetic biology platform that integrates strain engineering, enzyme engineering, biocatalysis, AI-driven high-throughput screening, fermentation optimisation and scale-up, downstream processing, and formulation development into a unified, end-to-end pipeline.
Such advanced techniques have earned the company global recognition, with solutions backed by international certifications and awards.
References
- Dipendra Kumar Mahato, Russell Keast, Djin Gie Liem, Catherine Georgina Russell, Sara Cicerale, Shirani Gamlath, Optimisation of natural sweeteners for sugar reduction in chocolate flavoured milk and their impact on sensory attributes, International Dairy Journal, Volume 115, 2021,104922, ISSN 0958-6946,
- International Food Information Council Food and Health Survey, 2024.
- The Impact of Vanilla and Lemon Aromas on Sensory Perception in Plant-Based Yogurts Measured with Static and Dynamic Methods, MDPI.
Original link: https://www.vitafoodsinsights.com/biotech-innovations/how-ingia-s-advanced-fermentation-responds-to-consumer-priorities
