16 Apr 2015 Rare sugar now in salad dressing in Japan

Virtually unknown in the West, rare sugar has become something of a sensation in Japan. McCormick salad dressing is the first salad dressing to use a rare sugar – one with 70% of the sweetness of sugar but far fewer calories – as an ingredient.

New in Japan, this product was adjudged a recent Datamonitor Consumer Product Launch Analytics innovation of the week.

The best things in life are sweet-tasting, but too much of a good thing can cause a host of health problems, including obesity and diabetes. Rare sugars – sugars made from monosaccharides like D-psicose and D-allose that occur in nature but in very small quantities – have become a new weapon in the war on obesity.

McCormick salad dressing is sweetened with 20% rare sugar sweetener (Rare Sugar Sweet) that has 70% of the sweetness of regular sugar and two very unusual health properties. It can reportedly prevent a spike in blood sugar levels afer consumption and fight fat buildup, which leads to weight gain.

The dressing is offered in Thousand Island, Blue Cheese, Caesar, California Creamy, and Tartar flavours.

Tom Vierhile, innovation insights director for Datamonitor Consumer, notes: “Rare sugar could be the biggest news in sweeteners in history since it delivers nearly all of the taste benefits of sugar, but has few of sugar’s negatives.”

He adds: “The inclusion of rare sugar in everyday products like salad dressing is a sign that rare sugar is edging closer to the mainstream in Japan and could eventually become a major player in global food and beverage products.”

Source: Datamonitor