Modulation of sweetness perception in confectionary applications

The development of sugar-reduced food products is a strategy to reduce the high sugar intake, which is aleading cause of global health concerns. Replacement and/or reduction of sucrose often leads to reducedsweetness perception with the consequence of decreased consumeracceptance. The aim of this work isto implement sensory modulation principles in a model confectionery system with the goal of enhancingsweetness perception. By using 3D-printing, confectionary samples were meso-structured by inhomogenousdistribution of sucrose concentrations and assessed, with a trained panel regarding sweetness. All sampleswere made up of a high and low sucrose phase and compared to a homogeneous reference sample. Theoverall sugar content was kept constant at 22.8 % in all samples and sweetness perception was compared.A significant increase of sweetness perception by over 30 % could be noted for samples consisting of a sweetouter shell and an inner less sweet core with a high sucrose gradient between the two phases. Whilst texuraleffects on sweetness perception could not be fully excluded, results can be seen as a strong indication thatsweetness modulation by inhomogenious distribution has a potential to be applied directly in solid foodproducts.K