When Australian sugar manufacturer CSR wanted to create a sugar alternative, it looked to nature. CSR marketing manager Mel Clayton talked to Food & Drink Business about the product’s development.
Visually, CSR Lite Raw Reduced Calorie Sugar looks exactly like sugar.
CSR marketing manager Mel Clayton told Food & Drink Business the company’s objective was to develop a 1:1 sugar replacement that had less calories than regular cane sugar but would “still deliver on taste, sweetness and texture”.
It also had to be all natural. “Existing alternatives on the market do not deliver on the sugar flavour profile and leave an aftertaste,” Clayton says.
Developing CSR Lite was a 12 month process, beginning with research to identify the availability of appropriate ingredients.
Finding the right blend
“Erythritol was chosen because it is a natural sweetener derived from plants,” Clayton says.
“It has almost no calories per 100 grams, but its sweetness is 70 per cent less than sugar, so we needed another ingredient to blend it with to get the right flavour profile.”
Stevia, which is also derived from plants, has 200 to 300 times the sweetness of cane sugar, but Clayton explained it has an aftertaste that CSR wanted to avoid.
The challenge was to get the right blend while ensuring there was no aftertaste, she said.
