Nestlé UK and Ireland is stepping up to the sugar challenge by stripping out 10% of sugar from its confectionery portfolio by 2018. The move will see around 7,500 tons of sugar removed across a number of well-known brands through a range of methods and initiatives.

Brand favorites like Aero, Quality Street, KitKat, After Eight, Animal Bar, Black Magic, Blue Riband, Breakaway, Caramac and many more chocolate bars will be stripped of sugar as part of the Nestlé UK pledge.

A spokesperson for Nestlé UK told FoodIngredientsFirst that the move isn’t new for the company, in that they have been reformulating for a decade, with a continuous focus on how we can make products better for consumers. “As the world’s biggest food and drink manufacturer in the world we have a huge responsibility to help begin to solve the health challenges facing the UK. We are at the forefront of efforts to improve nutrition health and wellness around the globe and take our role seriously across all of the categories in which we are present. Any focus on improving diet and health is entirely the right focus and one we share. All categories have a part to play, including confectionery.”

“Our commitment to reduce sugars by 10% by 2018 is a major step for us in a long term project to make our products better and bring down the level of sugars overall. We will be working to make further improvements in the years after 2018 but, for now, this is a realistic and significant reduction that we know we can achieve in the near term.”

The changes will largely be achieved by replacing sugar with higher quantities of existing ingredients or other, non-artificial ingredients and ensuring products are below a certain amount of calories. Nestlé’s continuing investment in research and development will also deliver new technology and innovation to further improve products in the future.

Fiona Kendrick, Chairman and CEO of Nestlé UK and Ireland said: “Our confectionery brands have been enjoyed in the UK for more than a century and we know that if we can improve these products nutritionally, provide more choice and information for the consumer, together with other categories, we can have a significant impact on public health.”

“Nestlé is at the forefront of efforts to research and develop new technology that makes food products better for our consumers. These innovations will help us to reduce sugar in confectionery when they are combined with other, more common methods like reformulating recipes and swapping sugar for other, non-artificial ingredients.”

“Making these improvements to our products is key to us delivering better choices for our consumers while retaining the same great taste that they know and love.”

Yesterday, Nestlé listed its ambitions for 2020 in a detailed report containing 42 commitments which are guiding the collective efforts to meet the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The company says it wants to bring societal commitments to life by focusing on three areas; individuals and families, communities, and the planet.

The long-term ambitions: to help 50 million children to lead healthier lives; help to improve 30 million livelihoods in communities directly connected to our business activities; and strive for zero environmental impact in our operations. For instance, Nestlé has already pledged to cut the sugar it adds to products by 5% by 2020, which means that in Europe alone, approximately 18,000 tons of sugar will be removed.

Nestlé is in the process of patenting new sugar technology. Using only natural ingredients, researchers have found a way to structure sugar differently. So even when much less is used in chocolate, your tongue perceives an almost identical sweetness to before. The discovery, which was announced at the end of 2016, will enable Nestlé to significantly decrease the total sugar in its confectionery products, while maintaining a natural taste. It has the potential to reduce total sugar by up to 40% in the company’s confectionery. Nestlé will begin to use the faster-dissolving sugar across a range of its confectionery products from 2018 onwards.

"Facets is a great example of the work we are doing in research and development to make cutting-edge food technologies a reality. The majority of the sugar reductions that we are announcing today will be achieved through other means. But we expect Facets to play a significant role as we improve our products further in the future,"  a spokesperon told FoodIngredientsFirst.

Nestlé Confectionery is also in the process of rolling out a reclose function for multi-serve products and portion guidance information on all packs, to visually help consumers recognize responsible portion sizes. All of the companys UK sharing bags have a reseal option using either a reclose sticker or a zip close function (e.g. Kit Kat Bites, pictured).

The spokesperson for Nestlé UK concluded: “The 10% sugar reduction in confectionery by 2018 is an announcement specific to the UK market and, while Nestlé is working to improve nutrition and health right across the globe, no two markets are the same. We sell different products, in different categories to different consumers in every single country that we are present and challenges differ. Confectionery is a major part of our operation here and improving public health in the UK is a primary focus for us, our industry, the government and consumers.”