In 2017, Public Health England (PHE) introduced a sugar reduction programme, which tasked the food and drink industry to remove at least 20% of the sugar across nine different food and drink categories by 2020. This could be done by through reformulation (the removal of sugar), a reduction in portion size or shifting purchasing towards lower sugar alternatives.
Why not take a look at our perspectives piece “A positive approach to sugar reduction” by Kirstie Jackson, our Own Brand Product & Project manager here at Bidfood.
Here at Bidfood, we are fully supportive of the PHE initiative and want to give our customers in the out of home sector a choice of lower sugar alternatives. Within our own brand ranges we have worked hard to reduce the amount of sugar across the nine key categories without compromising on quality or taste.
We carried out extensive redevelopment work on our Everyday Favourites scone recipes. With improvements in quality, our new recipes offer a light, fluffier eat alongside an appealing homemade, rustic visual. With absolutely no compromise on taste, we reduced the sugar in our sultana scones by 14% (ensuring we kept a high fruit content) and reduced the sugar in our plain scones by 26%.
Following rigorous benchmarking and taste testing we had great success in lowering the sugar in our Everyday Favourites ice cream range by over 20%, without compromising on taste or quality.
Our ever popular traycake range has been through some recipe developments – not only did we reduce sugar by 19% on average, but we made some fantastic recipe improvements. Our lemon drizzle tray cake now contains Sicilian lemon juice drizzle rather than a syrup and our Victoria sponge now contains a homemade jam with a higher fruit content. We also increased the amount of carrot in our carrot cake traycake and use an Arabica coffee paste in our coffee and walnut.
Our range of Everyday Favourites gateaux has undergone some recipe redevelopments. We had great success in improving the eat and visual of the products alongside a reduction of up to 28% less sugar in our strawberry, lemon and black forest whole and pre-cut gateaux.
Working closely with our supplier we took great steps forward in reducing the sugar content of some of our biscuits. Successes include our Everyday Favourites bourbons and Everyday Favourites ginger nuts, whilst also tackling the fruit shortcake that features within our Everyday Favourites sweet biscuit assortment.