The collection of companies known as 鈥渂ig food鈥� don鈥檛 typically engender a great deal of sympathy. So their recent rumblings about the in the UK鈥檚 Childhood Obesity Plan are likely to have been dismissed by most readers.
But there is more than a crumb of truth to those rumblings.
The plan鈥檚 goal is . It might sound superficially simple to achieve but, as ever, the devil is in the detail.
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For some categories, sugar reduction is indeed relatively straightforward. In sauces sugar can simply be removed, replacing lost volume with water and, if necessary, compensating for flavour differences with low calorie sweeteners. In other categories, however, there are surprising challenges.
Take cakes 鈥� for which sugar is far more than just a sweetener. It is hygroscopic, so retains water, helping keep cakes moist. It also boosts shelf life and quality.
During baking, sugar increases the temperature at which the mix sets, allowing for more aerated structures to form, and hence lighter, more delicate fare. It is also essential for creating delicious caramelised crusts, producing flavours beyond simple sweetness.
More than sweetness
Even if you can compensate for the all those roles, reducing sugar in a recipe can actually increase the number of calories. Sugar has a relatively low calorie density (around 4 kilocalories per gram), so if you just take it out, the proportion of fat (9 kcal per gram) will go up. Unless you reduce portion size, the number of calories will increase.
Replacing it with a starch or protein will have no effect on the calorie content, as they both have a similar energy density to sugar. Although this might be a good strategy for meeting targets, looking at it purely from a calorie point of view, it seems unlikely to do much about obesity.
Low calorie sweeteners, flavourings and colourings can help with some of these challenges. But there are caveats. Many of the most effective sweeteners, such as aspartame, are not suitable for use in baking because they break down at high temperatures.
Some non-sugar carbohydrates known as polyols can be used as sweeteners, for example sorbitol. But in sufficient quantities these have a that must be mentioned on the pack. Not an ideal marketing strategy.
Various dietary fibres can replace sugar鈥檚 bulk, but , and need to be used with care. And even without these issues, , demanding cleaner, more natural sounding ones.
Behind the headline-grabbing sugar targets, there is a very sensible commitment that calories should also be reduced, but in many categories of food it may prove challenging to achieve the two together.
Big food is genuinely engaged with this programme, but for it to be successful, everyone needs to be on board. For large manufacturers, with strong R&D capabilities, it may be possible to overcome some of the obstacles.
But smaller players in the most challenging categories might rightly feel like they are being set up for failure.
