by Thom King – Founder, Chief Innovation Officer, Food Scientist, Icon Foods and Rachel Zemser, MS, CCS, CFS , A La Carte Connections Sugar is not an ingredient. It’s a multi-functional system doing five jobs at once. Remove it without rebuilding those jobs and your product collapses in slow motion: Read more…
Where this paper started, It didn’t start in a lab. It started with a needle drop. I was listening to Paranoid… really listening, not just letting it run in the background. Somewhere between War Pigs and Iron Man, it clicked: This isn’t just music. This is system design. Four guys. Read more…
And If Your Formulation Hasn’t, Your Product Will Tell on You Summary Stevia didn’t fail—our expectations did. For years, it was treated as a one-for-one replacement for sugar, leading to products that tasted thin, unbalanced, or just “off.” The issue was never sweetness alone. Sugar is a system, contributing bulk, Read more…
Applying Fiber Systems in Beverages, Bars, and Baked Goods Where reduced-sugar formulations either hold, or fall apart Summary Most reduced-sugar formulations don’t fail in the lab, they fail in the real world. What looks stable on day one begins to break down under the combined pressure of pH, water activity, Read more…
How to rebuild structure once sugar is gone Summary Once sugar is removed from a formulation, structure doesn’t disappear—it shifts, and in most systems that burden falls squarely on fiber. Yet too often, fiber is treated as a label claim rather than what it truly is: a functional engineering tool, leading Read more…
The Five Functions You Have to Replace Why most reduced-sugar products fail before they ever hit the shelf Summary Sugar isn’t just a sweetener, it’s a multifunctional system that provides structure, bulk, water control, browning, and texture, all of which work together to define how a product performs over time. Read more…
Why PreBiotica™ Deserves a Permanent Seat in Your Fiber Stack A Field Guide for Formulators Who Are Tired of One-Note Solutions Pretending to be Systems Summary Most fiber strategies miss the point. Fiber isn’t a checkbox on a label, it’s a functional system inside your formulation. And when that system Read more…
The Polyol That Shows Up, Does the Work, and Doesn’t Need Applause Summary IMT1020™ NF Grade Isomalt isn’t a flashy sugar substitute—it’s a structural workhorse designed for real-world formulation. This white paper positions isomalt as a process-stable, low-glycemic polyol that delivers consistent performance across heat, humidity, and complex systems. With Read more…
The Structural Sweetener for People Who Actually Ship Product Summary Sugar wasn’t just sweet, it was structural. It built texture, controlled water activity, managed freezing, and quietly held entire formulations together. But as pressure mounts to reduce sugar, formulators are left rebuilding systems, not swapping ingredients. Maltitol syrup changes that equation. Read more…
Summary The gummy category is growing up fast—and it’s not just about nostalgia anymore. Today’s consumers want candy that delivers indulgence without compromise: lower sugar, cleaner labels, and even functional benefits. But reformulating gummies isn’t as simple as cutting sugar—it’s one of the most technically demanding challenges in confectionery. Whether Read more…