Abstract
Conventional vs. alternatives
Few food ingredients have garnered as much attention or been more influenced
by the latest food fads than sweeteners. This is partly because we consume so
much of them, nearly $12 billion in 2008, but also because all sweeteners have
some significant flaw, whether it be health concerns, taste or cost. For the
most part, sugar and high-volume corn sweeteners such as high fructose corn
syrup (HFCS) remain the dominant products, with sugar benefitting more
recently from its rebranding as a pure, natural product (and by lower costs
than HFCS). But sugar and HFCS are increasingly challenged by alternative
sweeteners, which target consumers that want to reduce their caloric intake or
who are concerned about diseases such as diabetes.
Alternative sweeteners are expected to account for 12 percent of the market by
2013 (totalling $1.3 billion), with growth driven by strong advances for
established products like sucralose and by the development of new products
like stevia extract. While the large, but now slowgrowing carbonated soft
drink market has been the key focus of alternative sweetener suppliers in the
past, growth in other food applications will become more critical to future
success. That success also depends on the development of products with better
taste profiles than the existing leading brands and a continued reduction of
sweetener costs.
Record of success
To date, the great successes for alternative sweeteners have been in diet soft
drinks, sugarless gum, and tabletop sweetener products. Diet soft drinks have
gained a third of the market, mainly because aspartame and ace-K have found
consumer favor as an alternative to sugar and HFCS, building on a much smaller
share of the market held by drinks sweetened with saccharin. Sugarless gum now
outsells sugared gum, as blends of polyols and high-intensity sweeteners such
as sucralose and ace-K can be combined to provide the right combination of
bulk, texture, flavor profile and sweetness. The tabletop segment has long
been receptive to alternative sweeteners. Saccharin retains a presence there
and, more recently, sucralose has become dominant in the tabletop market.
Natural alternatives such as reb-A and agave nectar are also gaining market
presence.
Hope for the future
In other potential markets, adoption of alternative sweeteners has been
slower. Although they can deliver the requisite sweetness for nearly any food
or beverage application, they have generally fallen short in one way or
another. Some are insufficiently stable when heated, limiting their use in
baked goods and other processed foods, while others have an unpleasant
aftertaste. And few alternatives successfully mimic the other physical
properties beyond sweetness that make sugar a nearly indispensible ingredient
in many food items. In some cases, the reasons for sluggish growth are less
readily explained.
Sucralose has not made a significant dent in the carbonated soft drink market,
which remains by far the largest single outlet for alternative sweeteners. In
contrast, ace-K is not widely used in applications outside of soft drinks.
Stevia and its extracts will benefit from efforts to promote it as a natural
alternative to other high intensity sweeteners, but offtastes remain.
Study coverage
Details on these and other key findings are contained in Alternative
Sweeteners, a new Freedonia industry study presents historical demand data
1998, 2003, 2008) plus forecasts for 2013 and 2018 by product and market. In
addition, the study assesses key market environment variables, evaluates
market share data and profiles 36 competitors in the US industry.
This study can help you:
- Determine your market & sales potential
- Learn more about industry competitors
- Assess new products & technologies
- Identify firms to merge with or acquire
- Complement your research & planning
- Gather data for presentations
- Confirm your own internal data
- Make better business decisions
Freedonia' s methods involve:
- Establishing consistent economic and market forecasts
- Using input/output ratios, flow charts and other economic methods to
quantify data
- Employing in-house analysts who meet stringent quality standards
- Interviewing key industry participants, experts and end users
- Researching a proprietary database that includes trade publications,
government reports and corporate literature
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