Reduced Sugar food and Beverage Market

The global reduced sugar food and beverage market is projected to witness significant growth during the forecast period. The key factors driving the growth in the market are the rising prevalence of obesity among consumers and key players. Additionally, the Government’s initiatives on reduced sugar consumption across the globe and the opportunities due to which the market can grow are the millennial population creating growth avenues owing to increasing health concerns in the upcoming short-term forecast period.

Nowadays obesity has been a common disease that have occurred when an individual’s weight is higher than what is considered healthy for his/her height. The disease affects children as well as adults, there are various factors that have contributed to excess weight gains such as eating patterns, physical activity levels, and sleep routines apart from these factors’ genetics, social determinants of health, and medication consumed also plays an important role in weight gain. Due to this people are more focused on consuming healthy foods and beverages that are sugar-free which will assist in overcoming obesity and other related diseases. For instance, a team from Emmanuela Gakidou of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, in January 2022, published that obesity is becoming an increasing concern among the population, as it can also increase the change of numerous health problems, such as blood pressure, stroke, diabetes, and heart disease. At present, the top countries where half of the obesity population resides are the US, China, Russia, Brazil, Mexico, Egypt, Germany, Pakistan, and Indonesia. Which US had the highest increase in the prevalence of adult obesity, this is followed by Australia where 28% of men and 30% of women have obesity, and in the UK a quarter of the adult population has obesity.

Due to this World Health Organization (WHO) had launched a campaign to stop increasing obesity by 2025. Also, according to WHO excessive consumption of sugar consumption is a key factor that increases obesity and diabetes. Reducing sugar intake lowers the risk of developing overweight and obesity. In 2021, the World Health Organization (WHO) recorded, a minimum of 1.9 billion adults who are 18 years and above worldwide were overweight, and of these, more than 648 million were obese.

The key players are also launching products that are reducing sugar and are assisting the market growth. For instance, in May 2018, nestle launched an addition to its Milky bar range that contains 30% less sugar compared to ordinary chocolate bars. The product name is Milky bar Wow which contains all-natural ingredients and no sweeteners.

As per the MRFR analysis, increasing consumption of processed food, dynamic lifestyles, and rapid urbanization have changed dietary patterns to more sugar intakes, because of which companies in the food & beverage industry had been investing in research and developments to reformulate the products with innovations by maximizing taste while limiting sugar contents. The top categories of food and beverages launched reduced sugar from 2018 to 2021 are shown below diagram.

These days the prevalence of various health ailments such as obesity, CVDs (cardiovascular diseases), and other diseases has created alertness among the millennials. To sustain a healthy life, consumers are focusing on the procurement of various health-beneficial food and beverages. Moreover, sugar content in food & beverages has a major impact on health. The consumption of conventional sugar-based products leads to a surge in weight owing to higher calorie content. Apart from food and beverage, consumers are also focusing on health and fitness activities to sustain a healthy lifestyle. These are the factors associated with increasing health concerns among the millennials that have shifted their preferences to opt for reduced-sugar food & beverages.

The millennial population is the major population group across the globe, it holds a share of approximately 23% which is 1.8 billion across the globe. According to an analysis of World Population Prospects, United Nations, in 2019, Asia accounted for 24% millennial population, Africa 21%, Latin America/Caribbean 23%, Europe 20%, North America 21%, and Oceania 22% of millennial demography. Asia region held the major share of the millennial population across the globe. The millennial generation is considered as a most skilled and educated group when it comes to health and well-being. Wellness is an active, and daily activity for the millennial population. They are focusing on the intake of healthy products and do exercises more as compared to the other generations. Among the overall millennial population across the globe, approximately 50% of them focus on healthy dietary patterns to lead a healthy lifestyle as compared with goal-driven food products. Moreover, the spread of technological knowledge has facilitated greater access to information regarding wellness and that has set personal health monitoring into their palms. The millennial population uses various technologies and applications to maintain a healthy life, and they are making more expenditure on fitness, and health. Moreover, The European Journal of Preventive Cardiology stated that millennial demography is at more risk for the development of various cardiac diseases and diabetes as compared with their parents or grandparents, this is primarily due to unhealthy patterns of lifestyle. Such type of lifestyle has increased the incidences of various diseases such as blood pressure, cardiac arrest, blood pressure, and Type-2 diabetes, these are the problems associated with health have led the millennials to opt for less or without sugar-based products that in turn pave the way for reduced sugar food and beverages among the millennials and is anticipated to grow over the upcoming years.

Artificial sweeteners, also known as sugar substitutes, non-nutritive sweeteners, or high-intensity sweeteners, are chemically synthesized substances used instead of table sugar to sweeten foods and beverages. As many times artificial sweeteners are sweeter than table sugar, a small amount that is 200 to 20,000 times less is usually used to create or make the same level of sweetness. The caloric content of sweeteners used in such small amounts is minor, due to which is sometimes known as non-nutritive. Nowadays food industry is utilizing more artificial sweeteners in a wide range of foods and beverage products as a substitute for sugars, for which harmful effects on several chronic diseases are now well established.

Few artificial sweeteners have been approved as food additives by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) those are Purified stevia leaf extracts, saccharin, aspartame, acesulfame potassium, Luo han guo, sucralose, neotame, and advantage. There are two more additives that are widely used alitame which is approved for use in China, Australia, and South America, and the other one is cyclamate which is used across 50 countries excluding the US. Before approval, these sweeteners, have been reviewed by FDA with numerous safety studies that were conducted on each and every sweetener to identify possible health Sid effects. And as per the studies that were conducted resulted that they don’t cause cancer or any other harmful disease in a person. Other countries are also having various sugar substitute options than the US. According to the NutriNet cohort study adults have consumed a large amount of aspartame that resulted to develop cancer, breast cancer, and obesity-related cancers than those who didn’t consume this substitute aspartame.

Furthermore, as per British Medical Journal, the regular consumption of food & beverages that are associated with artificial sweeteners are linked with various harmful diseases related to heart and circulatory diseases. Moreover, incidence related to obesity and diabetes continues to rise globally. Health awareness and adopting healthier diets to improve metabolic disorders.

Dental erosion is known as the intensifying and irreparable loss of dental hard tissue caused due to chemical additives of acid dissolution that do not involve bacteria. As per a recent study, it has been found that dental erosion is rapidly increasing and can have external or internal causes. External factors include the loss of mineral salts in acidic foods such as citrus fruits, acidic beverages, medicines like effervescent vitamin C preparations, and chewable vitamin C tablets. Internal causes of erosion include repeated vomiting due to psychological disorders, e.g., in consumption and bulimia or regurgitation of gastric contents because of some irregularity in the gastrointestinal area.

According to the Oral Health Cooperative Research Center, University of Melbourne, cutting down on sugar from food and beverages is a good decision for obesity, and other harmful diseases, and reduces the risk of dental decay. But avoiding sugar can affect and damage dental health. It has been tested that reduced sugar food and beverages can remove human teeth. The majority of soft drinks and sports drinks have resulted to cause of softening of dental enamel by 30-50%. Many peoples believe that drinks or food labeled reduced sugar is completely safe for teeth, but according to a study, sugar-filled products are better than reduced sugar which cause erosion of dental enamel. An Australian Dental Association’s Australia’s Oral Health Tracker has monitored that around 32.1% of people aged 15 and above have untreated tooth decay. The high-acidity drinks which should be consumed rarely are soft drinks, diet soft drinks, and sports energy drinks, second medium-acidity drinks that can be taken occasionally are juices, and low acidity can be drunk plenty type are water and milk. The high acidity drinks affect and harm the teeth vary fast on the other hand the low acidity drinks are not harmful and make the teeth stronger. Juices, milk, and yogurt products are not associated with dental erosion.