Boosted Confectionery

‘Functionality’ has been broadened in and modified to include nutritional benefits and ingredients which are thought to be ‘healthy’ or provide meal replacement, concentrated energy or other functions.

The Spanish colonists brought these beliefs back to Europe, eventually leading to the development of the chocolate industry and in recent times, scientific confirmation of some of the beneficial properties of cocoa. The sugar confectionery industry also developed to satisfy, with a very wide range of products, and variety of taste, textures and appearances, mans delight in sweet things.

The modern confectionery industry in general, has concentrated on supplying indulgence and the ‘sweet treat’ and, until recently, not on promoting other functional properties to generate sales.

In fact, the negative attributes of sugar based confectionery have been brought to the fore, emphasising its role in causing tooth decay, hyper-activity in children, diabetes, obesity, etc., demonising it, even when it is only marginally involved in these things.

This led to the development of sugar free confections, now a significant part of the total market for confectionery, but still catering for indulgence and the sweet treat.

In the last five years in the USA, functional confectionery has become the most dynamic development in the confectionery and health food market, as its functionality has been broadened and modified to include nutritional benefits and ingredients which are thought to be healthy or provide meal replacement, concentrated energy or other functions.

There are a large number of these confections in the USA market and in the bar category alone, including breakfast, granola and health bars, sold in grocery and mass merchandiser stores amounting to $1.8 billion sales in 2003, an increase of 17% over 2002. Estimates in other categories show similar volume growth, all confirming the potential of this relatively new range of confectionery products.

This rapid growth is due to many factors, but is particularly due to the influence of nutritionalists on the consumer and a better understanding of the benefits, either real or perceived, of nutritional additives – antioxidants, vitamins, herbs etc. and the balance of carbohydrates, proteins and fats in our diet.

The most dramatic example of this, was the Atkins Diet, with its concentration on high protein, moderate fat and low carbohydrate intake, leading to a whole range of low carb confectionery bar products. It was also fuelled by the alarming expansion of ‘junior diabetes’ in children, coupled with a general obesity problem in the USA, for which confectionery was erroneously blamed, with more responsible factors such as over-eating and lack of exercise often ignored.

Recently, the Atkins Diet has come under attack as being ‘too extreme’, with potentially long term health affects, so that ‘low carb’ products have declined in the last 6-12 months, and more moderate formulations based on the South Beach Diet and others being developed.

Most of the development of functional confectionery, until recently, has been promoted by non-confectionery companies, often with little knowledge of confectionery manufacture, but a strong marketing background, recognising the potential for their products, made by ‘contract manufacturers’.

The confectionery companies, including the larger ones did not immediately get involved, until two of the largest ones, Kraft and Nestle purchased two of the pioneers of functional confectionery, Power Bar Inc., and Balance Gold Inc. Now most of the larger companies are developing brands in this new market.

Confectionery has, I have believed for some time, a major future role to play in the fast food market, as the benefits of its ‘portability’, long shelf life without refrigeration and its ability to provide control of calorie intake and balanced nutrition, together with beneficial additives are promoted.

Functional confectionery can be broken down into four broad categories and a major part of them are ‘bar’ products:

• Products with specific additives, such as vitamins, antioxidants, minerals etc. with health benefits, added to conventional confections – often called nutraceuticals.

• Products which are nutritionally balanced in terms of calories from carbohydrates, protein and fat, offering meal replacement potential, often based on the FDA recommendation of 40% calories from carbohydrates, 30% from protein and 30% from fat.

• Products which are nutritionally ‘skewed’ to offer for example, ‘low impact carbohydrates’ or ‘high protein’, as promoted by the Atkins Diet.

• ‘Energy’ bars directed towards sporting or outdoor recreational activities, which were perhaps the original concept of a ‘functional’ bar.

There is inevitably a ‘blurring of the boundaries’ between these categories but generally they suffice for the purposes of this review.

Examples of each of there types of products are shown in the photographs below.

The availability of specific additives relies on the efforts of the pharmaceutical, chemical, fat and herbal products industries to provide ‘functional’ additives, which the consumer believes are beneficial to his or her happiness, health and well being without crossing over into the illegal character of narcotics or prescription materials. You have only to browse through a ‘health store’ to realise that there is an enormous variety of natural, largely unregulated, ingredients available for inclusion into confectionery bases.

This is a very active ingredients industry, but unfortunately, until the use of these is backed up by professional clinical testing, it will only be, I believe, a relatively small niche in the functional confectionery market.

The ingredients used in the formulation of nutritional bars or other products, are designed to replace sugar, provide high protein concentrates and modified fats with lower than standard calorific contents. The current confectionery industry is based on sugar as the main bulking ingredient and sweetener, making up 50% of chocolate, and a large percentage in syrup based confections, ranging from hard candy, fondants, crèmes, caramel etc. Sugar is rated as the perfect sweetener against which others are rated, and at a world price of 16 cents/pound is relatively inexpensive.

Its properties are well known and very desirable but in recent years it’s demonisation has led to a very active research program for the development of sugar replacers, to provide the bulking role of sugar and hopefully some of its sweetness, together with other properties of sugar which are important to the diversity of standard confections.Corn syrup has traditionally been used as a supplement to sugar in most confections, aided now by the development of enzyme techniques to tailor the composition of corn syrups, providing high DE. types, high maltose syrup and particularly high fructose syrup, now firmly established as a total replacement for sugar in soft drinks. Unfortunately, corn syrups are still carbohydrates and on a dry basis, have the same calorific value as sugar.

When formulating functional confections which are meal replacers with balanced nutrition, or ones promoting ‘low carbs’, sugar replacers are essential and are now available, albeit with some limitations.

The sugar replacers which are available are now detailed.

• When carbohydrates are treated with hydrogen under pressure – hydrogenated, they are converted to poly-alcohols (polyols) which changes their digestibility, reduces their calorie content, their ability to promote tooth decay and their "glycemic index" or detrimental affect on diabetics. In this way, lactose is transformed into lactitol, dextrose into sorbitol, maltose into maltitol and corn syrup into a mixture of polyols.

• These form the basis for the development of the growing market for "sugar free" confections, particularly interesting to diabetics, but also to the general public. Polyols are not carbohydrates but have similar properties and are useful in balancing nutritional recipes.

The calories content varies from 1.6 cals/gram for mannitol to 2.6 for sorbitol, with hydrogenated corn syrup up to 3 cals/gram. Generally, they have one adverse characteristic in that they can cause "gastric" problems, depending on body weight and amount ingested. This limits their daily intake, denoted as their "laxation threshold", and their use for "meal replacement" applications.

• Maltitol is often preferred for replacing sugar, being almost as sweet, with a lower calorie content at 2.1 calories per gram, many similar properties and one of the highest laxation thresholds of all of the polyols, at 100 grams per day.

• Hydrogenated corn syrups contain various levels of maltitol and sorbitol, together with long chain polyols produced from the dextrins in the corn syrup. High maltitol syrups are highly valued and widely used. Their sweetness and laxation thresholds vary from 30-40% as sweet as sugar and 40-50 grams/day.

• Isomalt is a product made from sugar, by isomerisation to isomaltose and then hydrogenation to form the polyol which has the calorific value of 2 cals./gram. This has properties which make it especially useful for sugar replacement in hard candy. It is considerably less sweet than sugar and generally requires the addition of an intense sweetener.

• Erythritol is a polyol produced by fermentation of carbohydrates and has the lowest calorie content at 0.2 cals./gram, of all the sugar replacers. It also has the highest ‘laxation threshold’, a sweetness of 60-70% that of sugar, and has many desirable properties for use in functional confectionery. It does however, have the highest ‘negative heat of solution’ and consequently a very pronounced cooling effect in the mouth as it is eaten. This can be useful in some confections such as ‘breath fresheners’ but limits its use in others. It also has a relatively low solubility and crystallises from solution readily which makes it useful in grained confection such as fondant and crèmes but difficult to use in non-grained confections such as caramel. It is being used in functional chocolate in combination with inulin to offset the cooling effect.

• Polydextrose is a randomly linked polymer of dextrose, giving it a calorific value of 1 cal/gram and similar properties to sugar, except that it has no sweetness and needs to be applied with an intense sweetener. Its low calorific content makes it a very useful ingredient in functional confections especially since its ‘laxation threshold’ is relatively high at 90 grams per day.

• Oligofructose and inulin occur widely in nature and are basically made of fructose molecules linked together with a bond which is not digested by the normal digestive system. It passes through the small intestine and is digested in the large intestine very much like other fibres. It has a calorific value varying from 1.6 – 2.5 depending on type and a sweetness of 30 – 60% of sugar.

• Crystalline fructose is often used in functional chocolate because of its low glycemic index and sweetness, despite its calorific value of 4 cals/gram, which is the same as sugar.

Generally the cost of the sugar replacers is higher than sugar and corn syrup and contributes to the higher cost of functional confectionery.

However, their role in the formulation of these confections is very important and the differences in their properties is made use of by blending them to achieve the physical, nutritional and organoleptic results desired in the finished product.

The proteins used in standard confectionery come from four main sources – milk, egg white, soya and gelatin but in these confections the protein content is relatively low with, for instance, approximately 5% of total calories in milk chocolate and soft nougat and 2.5% in caramel.

For nutritionally balanced functional confections, where protein levels are much higher at 20 – 30% of total calories, concentrated protein sources are required in formulation. These generally come from milk and soya and fortunately there is now a wide spectrum of products available from both sources, providing protein concentration up to 90% and ever improving refinements to their properties.

• Milk Protein Products

Spray dried whole milk powder contains 25-26% of total milk protein and skimmed milk powder 35-36%. By special techniques a total milk protein concentrate containing 89-91% protein is available giving the nutritional benefit of both casein and whey proteins, provided by whole milk without the high concentration of milk fat and lactose.

Whey protein concentrates and ‘isolates’ containing up to 81% to 92% are also available and widely used. Similarly casein concentrates/ isolates with protein levels of 87-91% are also available but neither provide the nutritional benefit of whole milk protein.

• Soya Protein Products

The soya industry now provides a very wide range of refined soya protein isolates with 90% soya protein and a bland flavor which is generally required in confectionery. These are being increasingly used in functional products, often in combination with milk protein isolates.

• Egg Albumin

Spray dried egg whites are nutritionally an excellent protein and are used for making aerated confections such as marshmallows and nougat. It is generally more expensive than other protein sources but because of its superior whipping properties, can play an important role in functional products.

Solid inclusions such as nuts, raisins and cereal products are used in chocolate confectionery and of these, peanuts contribute up to 26% protein as well as 60% peanut oil. Cereal products can be fortified with extra protein particularly soya protein to provide texture, flavour and nutrients to functional confectionery.

These are the ingredient tools which we have currently available for formulating functional confectionery and the list of those available is growing as ingredient suppliers continue to develop new ones to overcome their defects. The formulation of functional confections will be discussed in detail in my next article, all designed to meet the consumers expectations for confections which, not only taste delicious but are nutritionally more acceptable than the current products which are increasingly coming under scrutiny.

by Maurice Jeffery