Sweetener Breakups Are Hard: Why the Industry Is Quietly Moving on from Erythritol (and What to Do Instead) Summary Erythritol hasn’t been banned, and it hasn’t stopped functioning. What’s changed is risk. Once a quiet, reliable workhorse in sugar reduction, erythritol now carries perception volatility and trade exposure that smart […]
How Icon Foods Steers Brands Through the New Nutrition Frontier At SCIFTS and again at EXPOWest, the food and beverage industry won’t just be trading samples and business cards—they’ll be navigating the tectonic shift that’s reshaping how products get made, labeled, and loved. With the launch of the 2025–2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, the […]
Trade Policy Just Changed the Formulation Playbook (Again) Summary In The Erythritol Reckoning, Part II, Thom King moves beyond last week’s science debate and into the economic earthquake now reshaping formulation strategy. With final antidumping and countervailing duties of up to nearly 200% on Chinese erythritol, what was once a dependable, […]
Why the New U.S. Dietary Guidelines Will Reshape Better-For-You Food Innovation, and How You Can Lead the Charge Summary The upcoming 2025–2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans signal a decisive shift in federal nutrition policy, placing added sugar and highly processed foods squarely in the spotlight. Rather than focusing narrowly on […]
Summary RTD coffee has moved beyond convenience and into its second act: function-first formulation. Today’s bottled brews are expected to deliver protein for satiety, fiber for balance, adaptogens for focus, and low sugar without sacrificing drinkability. But coffee is a demanding matrix, acidic, polyphenol-rich, and unforgiving when sweetness or mouthfeel […]
Fillings • Added Sugars • And a New Day for Baked Goods When we talk about sugar reduction in baked goods, most conversations obsess over the dough. The crust. The base. The bread part. Meanwhile, the real sugar bomb is sitting quietly inside, minding its own business, wearing a strawberry […]
SteviaSweet™ RA99M v. RA60, RA80, and RA95 Summary SteviaSweet™ RA99M represents a next-generation advance in steviol glycoside sweetening, combining high-purity Rebaudioside A and Rebaudioside M to deliver a cleaner, more sugar-like taste than traditional Reb A grades such as RA60, RA80, and RA95. This white paper compares the four options […]
Why Frozen Cottage Cheese is the Next Legit Platform, and How to Formulate it Without Screwing it Up Summary Frozen cottage cheese, or “FroCo*,” is emerging as a serious new platform in frozen desserts, driven by the convergence of protein-forward eating, sugar reduction, GLP-1 behavior shifts, and clean-label expectations. Rather […]
Summary Hydrolysis may sound like a lab term, but it’s one of the cleanest design tools in modern formulation. This white paper explains how controlled enzymatic hydrolysis transforms traditional guar gum into FibRefine™ HG, a low-viscosity, water-soluble fiber that delivers prebiotic benefits without the thickness, slime, or off-notes that often limit […]
Aspartame, Sucralose, Ace-K v. MonkSweet™ MV50, SteviaSweet™ RebM, and SteviaSweet™ RM95D A formulator-to-formulator field guide, sensory, stability, synergy, and the real-world gotchas that show up at scale. Summary In a market where sweetness is easy but a true sugar-like experience is increasingly hard to deliver, The Sweetener Cage Match steps beyond ingredient […]