Search

Introduction: According to the Sixth Swiss Nutrition Report (BAG 2012), the average Swiss person consumes 127 g of sugar per day. This represents 19% of their total energy intake, twice that recommended by the World Health Organization, WHO (2015). The overall project objective of this project is to identify opportunities to reduce the added sugar content breakfast cereals. This part of the project concentrated on granola/crunchy types of breakfast cereals. Since consumers are typically concerned about taste and pay little attention to the sugar content of cereals, the initial focus was on establishing the extent to which the amount of sugar added could be reduced without consumers perceiving a reduction (“silent reduction”). This would then enable sugar-reduced products, acceptable to consumers, to be developed. Approach: The following approaches to reduce added sugar were considered: - An increase in the cereal content, combined with pre-gelatinization - Application of a binder (soluble fibres) - Evaluation of sensory effects (sugar allocation / distribution) Recipes for prototypes were developed in collaboration with industry partners. Three flavours (natural, fruit and chocolate) corresponding to each approach were considered with the underlying principle being that any adjustment to the recipe should be minimal. Sensory evaluations including paired comparison tests and rankings with trained assessors (panel size n=27) were used to assess the prototypes. Results: All three approaches resulted in sugar-reduced prototypes that were comparable to products available on the Swiss market. The sensory evaluations enabled identification of the sugar-reduced variants with the greatest potential of achieving a "silent reduction”. Furthermore, the degree of sugar reduction was found to be dependent on both the approach chosen and the flavour selected. Discussion: The results demonstrated that development of sugar-reduced breakfast cereals, with sensory properties comparable to their original (non-reduced) recipes, is feasible and that there is potential to achieve a “silent reduction”. Outlook: Further work includes investigation of consumers’ perception of sweetness for the prototypes developed and definition of the incremental reductions in added sugar and the corresponding time intervals in which these reductions can be implemented.